Okay, I know that I have not blogged for a while and I apologise. In my defence, I have had exceedingly sore testicles and this had lead me to pursue pursuits in my spare time which lean less towards the typing and more in favour of curling up, grasping my genitalia and moaning softly.
In the past I may have been less than sympathetic to the trials of those who have injured gonads. Getting a chap drunk and betting him that he cannot house both his bollocks into a standard sized Marmite jar was a favourite pastime.This is, incidentally, an easy feat, one simply pops them in, one at a time. Unfortunately there isn't room for both a plum and a digit, negating the chances of removing said testicles.
As I say, in the glory days of my youth, nothing made My Lordship happier than watching a grown man's face as he holds a claw hammer aloft and contemplates smashing the glass jar which houses his goolies.
This has changed.
I am not sure why I was surprised. After all, a soldering iron was plunged through my scrotum and I could have reasonably been expected to foresee that this may cause at least some level of pain, but the stories from those jaffas who had proudly gone before me were all of joy and pride.
I know, only now, that they were merely eager to be sharing their woe.
The initial agony was far from unexpected. No amount of localised anaesthetic was ever likely to entirely dull the pain and there is a limit to what measure any pain relievers are going to effect upon freshly seared testicles. I was, if anything, pleasantly surprised by how little things hurt once the anaesthesia had worn off.
What worried me was the residual pain which remained with me for weeks.
Now, when things first failed to settle I took it on the chin. It is hard to be anything but stoic when one has voluntarily submitted to such an intensely invasive procedure after all. When it became apparent that my continued discomfort was out of keeping with the advertised norm I had to admit some of the responsibility, after all I had been warned that 7-10 days of rest were called for, whereas I went straight back to work, attended a children's birthday party and generally failed to rest at all. As for the week of abstinence, well - I am sure that nobody really meant for me to remain celibate for a full seven days. I personally was rather proud that I had held off until the day after the operation, although I have to admit that this was more through Jim's protestation than my own self control.
Whatever the cause, after a few weeks I felt I had no choice but to toddle on back to visit Dr Watson to address the issue.
A bit of a prod around discovers a small amount of bruising around the area of the procedure in the right vas deferens, which happens in about 10% of men - nothing to worry about there - and a level of bleeding into the left of my scrotum which has left the poor little orb positively radiant with a ruddy hue and which appears to be unusual in the extreme.
I have the utmost faith in Dr W. (obviously, really - I let the man loose on both my testicles and my future family planning with an instrument which was clearly designed more for minor repairs to a transistor radio than for the severing of a sperm thoroughfare) and he is confident that the bleeding has now past, so I return to base camp.
The pain has yet to abate, but hopefully it will eventually subside. As things stand (and thankfully they still do) the pain is not unbearable, but the idea of living with it for my remaining share of eternity is not one I cherish.
