Three Strikes and You're Out

Hello People

Welcome to part three. Hopefully unlike many film franchises, such as The Matrix, Spiderman or X-men to name but a few, this third part will not fail and need remaking in years to come, but actually be referred to as the Return of the King of blogs i.e. A third part of a series whose script is not made by chimpanzees smashing endlessly away at a typewriter. Anyway on with the show.

His hands were cold. That was probably the worst part of the whole ordeal, the temperature. In my head before the dreaded physical examination I was expecting much worse. In my life apart from when I was a babe and maybe the occasional slip as a child, nobody had seen my private parts. It may seem weird but as nobody had seen me in all my glory and I did not actively go around staring at people in their birthday suits, I was unsure if mine was normally sized. Now this seems rather silly I grant you, but as a sort of a recurring nightmare (since it was daytime I guess it was a daymare but that doesn't sound quite right) I kept imagining him seeing my crown jewels and bursting into a fit of uncontrollable laughter or equally as terrifying telling me "There's nothing wrong with you, that is except for your amusingly sized penis, I've seen women packing more than you." In hindsight this was incredibly ridiculous as Doctors are professional, and even if they wanted to point and laugh hopefully for the sake of their jobs they would refrain from doing so.

It felt like days, the time I was left waiting out by reception. Eventually I heard my name on the intercom, "Callum Pattison for Dr White (made up name) room 13 (made up room)." Thankfully my mother didn't insist on joining me for testicular judgement but she did leave me with one comment "Just tell him what you told me." Now I assume she meant about the pain and not my insistence that it was only a bruise but regardless I would not be able to do it. When I crept into his room I was quite nervous and add to that my social ineptitude the result, awkward silence. Questions kept flying from all angles and instead of a flowing conversation the best I could offer was keywords. "Rugby" "Knock" "Pain" "SWELLING". The last one forwarded the confrontation, I was asked up onto the bed.

Like I assume the majority of people reading this right now, before I go to bed I remove my trousers. It requires no effort and causes no trouble, one second I am fully dressed and the next my trousers are folded ready for the next day, no problems. My prowess at removing trousers behind closed doors with no audience is not however transferable to a doctor's surgery. Do you remove your boxers and then hop on the bed, or jump on the bed and then shuffle everything down? I spent an awkwardly long time trying to work it out and settled on a comprise between the two. When I finally eased my underwear to my ankles and Dr White had equipped his gloves, the examination began and more questions madly bounced around in my head. Where do I look? Obviously not his eyes, but do I look while he cops a feel or do I make quick friends with the adjacent wall? Why has nobody prepared me for this? He broke the silence. "Don't worry, I see plenty of men every day this intimately." In what world does that pass for words of encouragement?

One thing to note is Doctors see an ungodly amount of patients in any given day or more generally their career. I was once told with more exact figures rather than the use of the word ungodly, but my memory has forsaken me and I can not share this knowledge with you. I can however remember the analogy to accompany the statistics. Imagine if you would, a swimming pool, nothing too special just your ordinary sports centre swimming pool. Furthermore imagine if you will, that each drop in this pool represents a single patient, which I'm sure we can agree on is an ungodly amount. If I were to drain all the drops except for those special few that represented patients that at some point in their existence have had a foray with cancer, most pools would be barren and dry with the occasional few hitting one or two. In real terms, the chances of any particular patient having cancer is unfathomably small. With that in mind the reluctance for doctors to drop the C-Word becomes slightly easier to see as realistically if you are a family doctor you may see only one cancer patient in your whole career and like me, he was pretty sure that I would not be that special one for him.

Fluid retention. That's what he said when he finished. There was a brief interlude where instead of bombarding my nether regions with excessive cold he would bombard my head with long words and testicle talk, all with my pants still slacking in their job of maintaining my dignity. Basically, testicles like most things in the body are made of tubes and capillaries, which at some point can become blocked with fluid (don't ask me what fluid, blood or water I guess) and cause swelling. Another thing to note is that there is more than one way testicular cancer can show it's ugly head. The most common as you may know is a lump. Its generally painless and grows relatively slowly. In the beginning I mentioned that this was not the case for me, instead of a small, smooth, painless lump, my whole testicle hardened and I'm not sure if I have said "IT REALLY HURT". The latter of the two and the group I found myself in is not too common and generally those symptoms are more indicative of other ailments such as fluid retention or other such nasties which I referred to in my first blog.

Luckily enough for me Dr White was not heart and soul sure about his diagnosis and with his hands still not yet satisfied with their prior fondling, more was necessary. As mentioned fluid retention was his current theory. Fluid allows light to pass through it as a rule of thumb. Therefore to easily prove or disprove this theory all that was needed was a little more light to be shone on the situation (sorry). With, if my memory does not deceive me, a UV light he once again started grappling at my testicles this time shining the light left ways and right ways. In further communications with Dr White he said that right up until the light test he was all for sending me packing with antibiotics or the equivalent to unretain fluid but when his light did not penetrate the testicle, doubt seeped into his brain and he started to question the effectiveness of antibiotics (or equivalent). "I'm going to send you for more tests. It's probably nothing, don't be alarmed. It's just to be sure."

If anyone is keeping track that would be the second major pothole my cancer journey barely skirted, my attempt to cancel the appointment potentially causing further undetection (yes I know its not a word) and the Doctor only being 99% sure in his primary diagnosis closely avoiding the futility of throwing antibiotic pebbles at the brick wall of cancer, a mangled ant at the foot of Poseidon's oceans. It may have already become apparent but when my cancer journey hits a crossroad, generally it picks the path of least resistance, detection over undetection, diagnosis over misdiagnosis. This is where it differs from other stories as many of the tales I have heard, when given the chance, cancer is unforgiving, brain tumours get diagnosed as headaches, ovarian cancer misdiagnosed as pregnancy, regardless how insistent the patient is of their virginity and I guess the point of this blog is to point out that even on the path of least resistance cancer is still cruel as may become more apparent later. "In case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!"