Body horror part 2

Body horror part 2

So there i was ...lying on the doctors couch...lower body exposed...waiting to feel the sword of democles cone crasinug down upon my neck. In reality it was not a sword but a long needle which appeared in the doctors habds. He was pretty sure it wasn't anything "sinister" but any relief at that news was soon tempered by the slowly dawning the knowledge that he was about to stick the afore said needle into my scrotum. He suspected a water cyst...which i'dnever heard of ....but after a couple of excruciating probes with the needle (in a futile attempt to drain some fluid away) it became clear that there was nothing to drain. After quite a bit of deliberation i remembered that some time ago i'd reported a strange feeling just above the groin and had been diagnosed with a small hernia...said small hernia had it seemed become a large hernia and instead the bowel pushing out had instead decided to go downwards into the scrotum...hence the swelling and discomfort. An ultra sound a month later confirmed that this was indeed the case and i now await an appointment with a surgeon in a few weeks...we will take it from there. 

And here we are. I must confess to feeling an odd mix of things on the wake of all this. Firstly embarrassment at foolishly not having the affliction investigated before now. As it turns out such hernias are very common...i've since spoken to at least six people known to me with the same exact ailment. It's unfortunate if not had a conversation with even one of them prior to this...but then it never occurred to me that what i had was anything as mundane as a hernia. The broader issues around why i neglected to go sooner to the doctor are both...to me...oddly clear and yet at the same time slightly mystifying...and have as much to do with my personal psychology as anything else. But that is for another blog. The other thing is that having established what it was not i now have to deal with the offending thing that it is....an op could be less than straightforward and will require time off and recovery time...in my small business that presents its own particular problems...but we will take that as it comes. The diagnosis has also motivated me to lose some weight and try to get fitter...so far i have adjusted my diet a bit (drinking a seperate liter of water a day is a challenge) but getting out even to walk is not that simple as the hernia is making its presence felt somewhat. I also have a few other issues that may need attention....but i can only cope with so much at once. Anyway that's enough body horror for now 

Body Horror

It's been an interesting few months. 

For some time now i have not been well. A number of niggling things which may or may not be connected plus a couple of bigger things. One thing in particular of note. The following contains graphic detail of my anatomy which will not be to everyone's taste. You have been warned. 

I have never liked going to the doctor...this is a trait i believe in men generally but i am not convinced about this as i've met plenty of women who don't either. Since my separation about six years back i've been only a handful of times and even then it's been about something fairly trivial..i always ensured that the subject stayed on trivial matter and that we did not digress into matters of more general health. Not that my doctor is the issue ...he's a perfectly charming and avuncular chap who is easy to talk to. The problem is entirely mine. I'm not exactly sure what it is but it's gotten worse since i've been on my own...as most things do. When your life is turned upside down and you are forced to adapt to a new situation certain things happen which are hard to explain. Ones way of thinking changes...in my case living from week to week (in my head) and not thinking much beyond that became my default setting ...that and my propensity to avoid making decisions and facing things in general increased exponentially. There you have the foundations of manys a problem....especially when it comes to health. For some time i'd been conscious of a particular physical problem which was slowly but progressively getting worse ...and which for a variety of complex reasons i chose to ignore. Since my early twenties (i am now 52) I have had what i choose to call "issues" in the "down below" area (i.e. the scrotal region and all associated with it) ...over a period of years i've had various examinations etc showing nothing of note so in the end i put a lot of it down to my imagination and just an in built discomfort with that particular part of my body. About six years ago i began to intermittently experience what i believed to be severe IBS (this was mainly self diagnosis though as it tended to surface at times of extreme stress i was pretty confident in my conclusions ..,turns out i was at least partly right. )   This would come and go sporadically and since i am self employed (effectively a one man band) and have a reasonably high pain threshold i struggled on with it , occasionally medicating with pain killers etc. During this same period however i detected a swelling in the scrotal region...i am being deliberately vague as i kept it deliberately vague...i knew one of my testicles (as i thought ) was becoming larger and while i was aware that it can  be common enough to have one bigger than the other i also knew that something was wrong if the size was increasing albeit very slowly. . I should point out that i studiously avoided examining the offending item...indeed i avoided all but the most minimum of contact with the offending region other than what was strictly necessary for personal hygiene. I prefer bathing to showering so it was relatively easy to have little contact...i refused even to look down at myself in the bath for fear of what i'd see. I was however aware that the swelling was increasing as i was becoming increasingly uncomfortable in my clothing...twelve months ago i could have worn a pair of regular fit jeans (though i tended not to ) but by this April past i was finding it difficult to get even track bottoms to fit comfortably ...especially  given the current fashion trend of everything being made to grip the crotch like a vice. I had gotten to the stage where i had to wear track bottoms all the time and could not go anywhere that would involve a suit or any formal dress. Given that i do not have much of a social life and rarely dressed formally anyway and that my work allowed for casual dress i was able to get by without it provoking undue attention but i'm pretty sure some folk must have wondered why i was always in loose track pants, even on the rare occasions when i went out for a meal etc. Things came to a bit of a head when i attended my mother in laws funeral...a rare event i could not get out of. For this i had to resort to an

old pair of (way to big) hire trousers which i hid under a long trench coat (fortunately the day of the funeral was wet) ...even then it was a struggle and i felt incredibly self conscious. I knew at this point I was not going to be able to camouflage things for much longer and that i could not keep going like this. About a week later, whatever way i was standing, a friend happened to notice that there was a bulge where there shouldn't be and being the type of friend who would not take no  for an answer insisted that i go see the doctor and threatened to make the appt for me if i did not. While i'd known about this issue for several years at this point it came like a terrible shock to the system to finally be discovered and to have to face the prospect of dealing with it. I wanted to go back to blissful and willful ignorance all the time fully aware that was impossible.  I would now have to do something ...including tell my family (that's an estranged wife, two teens and a 91 year old father) that there was a

problem. That unerved me more than going to the doctor but i managed to cobble something together for them (could be serious but not sure etc) and eventually (it took a further two weeks of threats and coercion by said good friend  ) I made the fateful appointment. 

What happened next is salutary and can wait till the next blog.