Wednesday 30th July, 2003 – My Famous Testes

I visited the doctor for the first time in a long time last week. While I revel in the attention and sympathy that being ill brings, I’m quite a healthy person all things told. Nor am I a hypochondriac – yes, I’m willing to ham it up a bit when I am ill for extra coddlosity (real word, meaning degree of being coddled), but I won’t pretend to be ill when I’m not, nor am I inclined to presume that every bodily ache or pain is an early symptom of Motor Neurone’s Disease or Vibration White Finger.

Having said that, I have a morbid and long-standing preoccupation with cancer. Or more specifically, my getting it. My teenage years were punctuated by nights of silent dread as I deduced that a never-before-felt lump somewhere on my person was a malignant tumour. This culminated in a mystifying, horrible, but ultimately humorous incident in my first year of university, where I managed to detect a lump on my testicle at 2:00 in the morning, and spent the next 5 hours pacing, worrying, re-checking the lump (it’s definitely there!), and imagining future scenarios with me bald and stoic, while my friends re-assessed how important I was to them, and realised long-suppressed romantic impulses.

Of course, when I finally woke up after falling asleep just as it was getting light, I immediately felt for the lump, and was completely unable to locate it. Several minutes of intense, forensic inspection were unable to turn it up. I genuinely have no idea what on earth happened. I suppose I must have imagined it…. but I genuinely checked dozens of times, and found it with a shudder on each occasion. Had I been mistaken? Had I been miraculously cured, and this was a sign from God to accept Him into my heart? No, ludicrous. Or did I have some kind of superhuman testicle-healing ability? I was intrigued.

I thought no more of this until last week when, after suffering for several weeks with a general feeling of achiness and tenedrosity around the testicle, groinal and lower-backal area, I decided to be brave and make an appointment with the doctor. There was no lump this time, but Jane managed to convince me that this was not a pre-requisite symptom of testicular cancer, thus convincing me that yes, this time I definitely had it, and precipitating more nights of panic and frantic bargaining with God.

Typically, the soreness etc. completely disappeared in the days before my appointment, but I wasn’t prepared to accept that this wasn’t just God playing with my head (Hasn’t he got better things to do? What a tosser.), so resolved to keep the appointment, regardless of my misgivings about the inevitable ball touching that would be involved.

To be fair to Dr Elliott, he was very friendly and professional. He has a pleasant, round, wrinkled face, and – in my state of nervous anxiety – I only just managed to stop myself making the comparison between it and the very testicles he was examining.

Being examined wasn’t as embarrassing as I’d feared, as Dr Elliott kept talking throughout, sparing me the agony of having to think of something appropriate to say as a middle-aged man cups your balls in his hand. He showed me how to check them properly, and also warned me not to be alarmed if I were to find the occasional small lump on the tube that lives just round the back of them. He illustrated its location with a gentle, and yet heart-stoppingly painful squeeze.

Finally, and with a cheeky smile, he reassured me that everything was perfectly normal, but that I had done the right thing by coming in, as many men are too embarrassed to seek help when they fear there may be something wrong. I was worried that he would be angry that I had wasted his time, but his words of praise made me feel ten feet tall, and I resolved to visit again within six months, regardless of whether my testes hurt or not, just to show him how mature and free of hang-ups I am.

Relieved, but now complacent, and flushed with testicle-related hubris I spent the remainder of the afternoon dangling my balls over the microwave oven, and writing e-mails on a laptop computer, with a mobile phone in my pocket, next to an electricity pylon. I have checked them again since, and they are still OK! They are clearly indestructible! This may be my way out of the gutter. I can take them on the road, and – like that Japanese man who stands on a street corner and charges people to let them beat him up – give people the chance to inflict whatever punishment they so desire on my unyielding balls.

Or is that a stupid idea? Only time will tell. I’m conscious that it seems that I am making light of a terrible disease for the sake of some willy and ball jokes, and essentially I am. But, what is really interesting is how frightened I was before hand, how clearly I had visualised my life after receiving the dreaded news, and how it would effect me and those close to me, and then how blithely I had accepted the doctor’s reassurances and continued with my mostly feckless, short-term perspective style of living.

Despite my chilling brush with death, I am still just as likely to meet my end having failed to reach my potential, resolutely ignoring any of life’s prompts to seize the moment and whatnot. That is unless my indestructible testicle roadshow takes off, in which case I will die a millionaire with famous knackers, and then who will be laughing? No one.