Caltrops - Biohazard: Code Veronica





	[quote name="Senor Barborito MetaFilter Post"]<i>You had an anesthesiologist? All I got was a bag of frozen peas.</i> I suppose I should explain. This will be painful for some guys to hear, so you may want to skip the next bit. Since I was sixteen I had what is known as chronic or recurrent testicular torsion. Basically - my balls weren't properly anchored and got twisted very easily. Every time they did so, I wound up doubled-over screaming at the top of my lungs and pounding the floor with my fist as I desperately tried not to black out from the pain. When this happens you're supposed to go to the emergency room. I did not know this, nor did my parents, so I wound up having to fiddle around with my gonads (which actually did make me pass out from pain on at least one occasion) until I got it right. After the third or fourth time (I was getting it about every six months starting when I was sixteen) I discovered that taking a hot bath worked wonders - it provided a bouyant, relaxing environment that loosened everything up enough that I could manipulate my testicles relatively painlessly until I got it right. This continued for years. About two years back I discovered that this condition, if not treated within several hours can lead to testicular neckrosis (your balls die) and that you're supposed to go to the emergency room more or less immediately. Then, a few months ago, I started getting it WEEKLY in instead of twice a year. I went to my doctor about all this about a month ago. Explained that I wanted to get my balls fixed, and that while I was at it I wanted to get a vasectomy as well. As I said above, he and everyone else signed off on the operation after making me justify it. The point, in any case, was that I didn't just get the simple local anesthetic, small incision in the back you're out of the doctor's office in 45 minutes job. I had full-blown surgery in an OR under general anesthesia, morphine after the operation for pain reduction, the works. Fortunately for me the pre-op sedative knocked me out before I was even wheeled into the OR. Several incisions were made to my scrotum - including two very large ones to the front through which each testicle was physically removed from the scrotum, observed for general health and detangled, then reinserted and physically sewn to the inside of the scrotal sack. Needless to say, an ice pack wasn't really going to cut it. I've been on a pretty heavy dosage of prescription painkillers (oxycontin) and standard ibuprofen junk beginning the minute the morphine started to wear off. The good news is that as of tomorrow I shouldn't be bed-ridden any longer, as it has been a long week. My waiting period, for whatever it's worth, was about two weeks. posted by Ryvar at 12:29 PM PST on June 9 [/quote]