28 days later
it was 1am on thursday morning, 4 weeks ago, when i felt a pain in my scrotum.
"ouch," i did think, hoping that it would hopefully go away after a few minutes. you know. like men do.
it did not.
it got worse.
after 45 minutes and a period of time where i was so nauseous that i was trying to force myself to throw up, but on a dry empty stomach, for i had not eaten since 2pm and had only been drinking water, the night before, while watching glee, it was resulting in dry retching only. my entire lower abdomen had been locked in a state of rictus from pain.
i packed a small bag with a book, my new i-pad knock off (purchased the previous thursday that arrived on the monday)and a 16gig usb thumb drive(bought for me as a present by the angry fish, who was also the one who notified me on the cheap e-pad and had just been filled with tv shows by minna) that was to prove my saviour as things progressed.
i parked down the street in an un-metered unmarked area and cautiously made my way into the emergency room. they had about four people in there, waiting and i approached the front window with a glum, "i know i have to wait my turn" attitude. when i mentioned where the pain was, they looked at my medicare card, my healthcare card , took a few notes and opened the doors for me, straight away. it appears the possibility of losing your ability to reproduce takes precedence over many other maladies on the "suing you for not responding quickly enough" scale.
what followed next was about an hour of sitting as they inserted an iv drip, gave me a shot of morphine and fixed a saline bag to replace fluids, as i was sweating a little bit. they gave me a yellow lidded sample cup and asked me to give them a sample. over the next three hours i had another two shots of morphine and another two and a half bags (around 5 pints) of saline before i was capable of providing them with about 20ml of fluid. oh, and the morphine did nothing to dull the pain i was feeling. i didn't go light headed, my feet felt different, but i was perfectly clear and rational thinking. they inquired about my shape and i told them i had found a cyst when i was fifteen, but the doctor i had seen at the time told me not to worry about it, unless it changed shape, size or whatever. they tried to locate the lump by feel, but terror had withdrawn things up inside, which did not help relax their fears of that i might have testicular torsion.
normally they'd do an ultrasound to see if it was torsion, but they feared i had taken so long to give a sample that it might have already choked itself to death and every minute counted.
so, after signing my right to sue away while feeling rational and perfectly clear, other than the pain, it was straight into the operating theatre to slice me open and see. the fluids were for urinary tract infection tests, for they suspected chlamydia. by this stage either the drugs for the pre-op were working well or i was just too tired to care as they moved me from table to table at around 8:30 in the morning, i felt like saying, "actually it doesn't even hurt, anymore." instead i managed to croak out "call my work, they need to know i won't be in, today..."
at 10:30 in the morning, i awoke to my nether regions smothered in betadine and an ice pack wedged well and truly at the top of both my thighs. the nurses heard movement and popped in to see how i was and let me know everything went well...
"it wasn't torsion," they said...
"so they know what the problem was?" i asked, hopefully.
"we're just waiting back on the test results," they replied, their half smile showing their believed thought process that i was a dirty little sex monkey who had received a s.t.i. and thus, mock-able, "but they found a cyst and removed it."
how nice. they don't know if it was the cyst that caused the pain, but, for aesthetic reasons, they removed it, anyway. like internal plastic surgery...
work ended up sending someone to my house to see why i hadn't turned up and wasn't answering my phone, but the flatmate was home and managed to call me while i was taking stock of my supplies. i assured them i was ok and they would know details when i had them. my phone had no credit to call people and my new wizz bang tablet pc had no public wi-fi to access. so i settled in to a bunch of outsourced and no ordinary family, during periods of unconsciousness, peeing blood (just the once, after the operation. it's been fine since), and waiting to hear from a doctor involved in my case. i took the time to investigate the wound and realised that there was no stitching, just skin folded in on itself. when i asked they said the doctors had used some kind of superglue to keep everything back in place.
the only bed available to me was as an non-oncological patient in an oncological ward, so my doctors were in a different part of the hospital and had left before they could see me, so i stayed overnight...
the next day, within 30 minutes of being awake, two different orderlies mad a suggestion along the lines of, "so, hey, we have spare towels here, if you want to have a shower..." so i had a shower. two minutes into lathering up there was a knock on the door and someone called my name...
"yes?" i queried back.
"it's your doctors. we'll come back later."
which i was surprised at. after all, if they're going to be inspecting the area in question, there was no better time, really. anyway i cleansed myself of iodine and prepared to settle in for another day, when a lady doctor came in to inspect the goods and send me on my way at about 11am. i didn't even get lunch.
i ordered my antibiotics, still strong from hospital pain killers and made my way to the car (no ticket, yay!) and went to work to give them my doctors note. i had missed two days and only had three left so they told me not to worry and rest up, but they'd be back in contact about next semester. yay!
i returned home, called upon the wah to see if he would mind driving me about and started to prepare to rest up, as my good painkillers wore off and the regular old neurofen plus wasn't doing the job.
i was surprised by the discomfort that i experienced, just putting my legs together, to sit in the front passenger seat. girlclumsy and wah were kind enough to cook for me, that night, as i got to regale them with my tale and they tried to get the ball rolling on making me testy about work giving me the sack. there were many more but they made me hurt when i laughed...
more resting, missing jugger(curses!) and on wednesday i went into town to get a gp to tell me my fluid test results. when i booked the appointment i gave them the information about the hospital and why i was coming in. when i turned up, he had no paperwork and got angry at me for not properly arranging things. luckily (?) i knew one of the guys behind the desk from mana bar so he arranged for the results to be faxed over and for a new appointment, and hour and a half later. so i bought comics and gave pol the good news, before returning and, without even taking me into the office, told me that everything had come back clear.
i wonder if he would have done the same if i was suffering from a uti? announced the infection in the middle of the waiting room, because i'd bothered him twice on the same day...
so, more rest and the urge to be a social butterfly bursting within. at the two week mark i hadn't had any wound seepage for two days, so i went to the mana bar and one lovely lady leapt into my arms to say hi. i'm not allowed to carry weight greater than 5 kilos, at this point, so not the best thing. i haven't been to the movie, yet, because the enclosed seats push my legs too close together and not a good result. this week, received a telegram from myself, in the future, to warn me not to let them operate, that they should do the ultrasound, first. i think i'm going to frame that little piece of genius...
the seeping has stopped but there is a low background pain coming from the 'nad in question. i have an appointment to see the team for a follow up on the 11th (just confirmed today) so we'll see what they have to say about my long term future.
the fiend
and that concludes our national state distress address.
"ouch," i did think, hoping that it would hopefully go away after a few minutes. you know. like men do.
it did not.
it got worse.
after 45 minutes and a period of time where i was so nauseous that i was trying to force myself to throw up, but on a dry empty stomach, for i had not eaten since 2pm and had only been drinking water, the night before, while watching glee, it was resulting in dry retching only. my entire lower abdomen had been locked in a state of rictus from pain.
i packed a small bag with a book, my new i-pad knock off (purchased the previous thursday that arrived on the monday)and a 16gig usb thumb drive(bought for me as a present by the angry fish, who was also the one who notified me on the cheap e-pad and had just been filled with tv shows by minna) that was to prove my saviour as things progressed.
i parked down the street in an un-metered unmarked area and cautiously made my way into the emergency room. they had about four people in there, waiting and i approached the front window with a glum, "i know i have to wait my turn" attitude. when i mentioned where the pain was, they looked at my medicare card, my healthcare card , took a few notes and opened the doors for me, straight away. it appears the possibility of losing your ability to reproduce takes precedence over many other maladies on the "suing you for not responding quickly enough" scale.
what followed next was about an hour of sitting as they inserted an iv drip, gave me a shot of morphine and fixed a saline bag to replace fluids, as i was sweating a little bit. they gave me a yellow lidded sample cup and asked me to give them a sample. over the next three hours i had another two shots of morphine and another two and a half bags (around 5 pints) of saline before i was capable of providing them with about 20ml of fluid. oh, and the morphine did nothing to dull the pain i was feeling. i didn't go light headed, my feet felt different, but i was perfectly clear and rational thinking. they inquired about my shape and i told them i had found a cyst when i was fifteen, but the doctor i had seen at the time told me not to worry about it, unless it changed shape, size or whatever. they tried to locate the lump by feel, but terror had withdrawn things up inside, which did not help relax their fears of that i might have testicular torsion.
normally they'd do an ultrasound to see if it was torsion, but they feared i had taken so long to give a sample that it might have already choked itself to death and every minute counted.
so, after signing my right to sue away while feeling rational and perfectly clear, other than the pain, it was straight into the operating theatre to slice me open and see. the fluids were for urinary tract infection tests, for they suspected chlamydia. by this stage either the drugs for the pre-op were working well or i was just too tired to care as they moved me from table to table at around 8:30 in the morning, i felt like saying, "actually it doesn't even hurt, anymore." instead i managed to croak out "call my work, they need to know i won't be in, today..."
at 10:30 in the morning, i awoke to my nether regions smothered in betadine and an ice pack wedged well and truly at the top of both my thighs. the nurses heard movement and popped in to see how i was and let me know everything went well...
"it wasn't torsion," they said...
"so they know what the problem was?" i asked, hopefully.
"we're just waiting back on the test results," they replied, their half smile showing their believed thought process that i was a dirty little sex monkey who had received a s.t.i. and thus, mock-able, "but they found a cyst and removed it."
how nice. they don't know if it was the cyst that caused the pain, but, for aesthetic reasons, they removed it, anyway. like internal plastic surgery...
work ended up sending someone to my house to see why i hadn't turned up and wasn't answering my phone, but the flatmate was home and managed to call me while i was taking stock of my supplies. i assured them i was ok and they would know details when i had them. my phone had no credit to call people and my new wizz bang tablet pc had no public wi-fi to access. so i settled in to a bunch of outsourced and no ordinary family, during periods of unconsciousness, peeing blood (just the once, after the operation. it's been fine since), and waiting to hear from a doctor involved in my case. i took the time to investigate the wound and realised that there was no stitching, just skin folded in on itself. when i asked they said the doctors had used some kind of superglue to keep everything back in place.
the only bed available to me was as an non-oncological patient in an oncological ward, so my doctors were in a different part of the hospital and had left before they could see me, so i stayed overnight...
the next day, within 30 minutes of being awake, two different orderlies mad a suggestion along the lines of, "so, hey, we have spare towels here, if you want to have a shower..." so i had a shower. two minutes into lathering up there was a knock on the door and someone called my name...
"yes?" i queried back.
"it's your doctors. we'll come back later."
which i was surprised at. after all, if they're going to be inspecting the area in question, there was no better time, really. anyway i cleansed myself of iodine and prepared to settle in for another day, when a lady doctor came in to inspect the goods and send me on my way at about 11am. i didn't even get lunch.
i ordered my antibiotics, still strong from hospital pain killers and made my way to the car (no ticket, yay!) and went to work to give them my doctors note. i had missed two days and only had three left so they told me not to worry and rest up, but they'd be back in contact about next semester. yay!
i returned home, called upon the wah to see if he would mind driving me about and started to prepare to rest up, as my good painkillers wore off and the regular old neurofen plus wasn't doing the job.
i was surprised by the discomfort that i experienced, just putting my legs together, to sit in the front passenger seat. girlclumsy and wah were kind enough to cook for me, that night, as i got to regale them with my tale and they tried to get the ball rolling on making me testy about work giving me the sack. there were many more but they made me hurt when i laughed...
more resting, missing jugger(curses!) and on wednesday i went into town to get a gp to tell me my fluid test results. when i booked the appointment i gave them the information about the hospital and why i was coming in. when i turned up, he had no paperwork and got angry at me for not properly arranging things. luckily (?) i knew one of the guys behind the desk from mana bar so he arranged for the results to be faxed over and for a new appointment, and hour and a half later. so i bought comics and gave pol the good news, before returning and, without even taking me into the office, told me that everything had come back clear.
i wonder if he would have done the same if i was suffering from a uti? announced the infection in the middle of the waiting room, because i'd bothered him twice on the same day...
so, more rest and the urge to be a social butterfly bursting within. at the two week mark i hadn't had any wound seepage for two days, so i went to the mana bar and one lovely lady leapt into my arms to say hi. i'm not allowed to carry weight greater than 5 kilos, at this point, so not the best thing. i haven't been to the movie, yet, because the enclosed seats push my legs too close together and not a good result. this week, received a telegram from myself, in the future, to warn me not to let them operate, that they should do the ultrasound, first. i think i'm going to frame that little piece of genius...
the seeping has stopped but there is a low background pain coming from the 'nad in question. i have an appointment to see the team for a follow up on the 11th (just confirmed today) so we'll see what they have to say about my long term future.
the fiend
and that concludes our national state distress address.