I won’t mince words and try to SFW this post or attempt to make this subject matter politically correct. I’m tired of avoiding uncomfortable conversations because I fear retribution, hate, loss of work, or judgement. Bring it on! I’m tired of feeling alone with conversations about sex, sexual function, politics, religion, relationships, and in this case genital health. While there won’t be any pictures of my junk (I save that for my Onlyfans audience of 0), if you don’t want to hear me talk about pain, balls/testicles, surgery, or penises…please feel free to stop reading. It’s all good!
Brief medical timeline of my life with male genitals
- Infancy – circumcision, not by choice…but by cultural force. I don’t blame you, Mom.
- Adolescence and young adulthood – lived with a larger left testicle which made it difficult to run, play, and rough house. When kids made fun of “tighty-whities”, I didn’t. Like a sports bra for individuals that need support, thank you Fruit of the Loom. When I was in highschool I discovered boxer briefs and the world was so much cooler! I guess I just have a big package.
- Late 20s – After pestering my physician about my discomfort and a condition I’d read about on a dark web “penis support group” forum, we finally discovered that what I had was a varicocele. I finally got my varicocele treated by embolization. Because the amount of blood to my testicles was NOT recirculating back into my body at an equal rate, embolization restricts the flow of blood so that the blood can recycle at a rate. I don’t know what type of embolization I received. I wish I had learned about this condition while I was still running track…it would have made running so much more comfortable. RELIEF!
- 40 – I got a vasectomy finally! With Juliette and Grayson in my life, I am happy to be done having any more biological children in my lifetime. Also, I wanted to free Laura from the burden of birth control – although, she liked to say that “the pill” was great for her skin. Speaking of birth control, the IUD she had in our 20s and 30s was fucking evil to her and me. The pain she described as it was put in and removed sounded like absolute torture. On the opposite end, the pain I got to experience every single time we had sex and I went too deep was also tremendously painful. Fuck you IUD!
- 44, today – I just took a trip to the ER with severe testicular pain after a run. Is it testicular torsion? Do I have cancer? Is this another varicocele? Complications from my vasectomy?
Purpose for the time headers below
This is a grand stereotype, but tends to be more true than false. Men dismiss the pain they feel as weakness, so they wait it out, push it down, or run through it. This is stupid, it’s the Darwin award of the male species, yet here we are in wars, electing dictators, and praising rocket men. The men that learn to care for themselves and each other will hopefully dominate the gene pool as we move forward. Ladies, find the strong emotional men!
The time headers help underscore my hopeful evolution in this experience from a dumb male to an enlightened one. Each hour of pain I have a choice; ride it out, toughen up, and take some “vitamin I“. Or I can choose to care for myself and the health of my body. The tricky part here is that the care I must have is for my genital function. Like Bruno, we don’t talk about balls, testicles, nuts, penises, cocks, dicks, man packages, or twigs and berries (thank you Austin Powers). Talking about these things as George Carlin knew and found out is taboo, TMI, not natural, perverted, and now some might call it, “woke”. For those still in that camp, bless your heart. For those that are free or trying to free themselves from the confines of cultural control – talk about your pain AND talk about your pleasure. Someone out there is looking for a friend, looking to be seen and heard, and needs to read your story. Your real life human-ing can help another human struggling through similar things. Intimately sharing yourself will lose you so called “friends” and gain you different types of amazing lovers.
Slow run, 630pm
I went for my normal trail run yesterday after a long day at work. Rather than sit around the house or do additional work for Empathy Lab, I decided to take a run. I put shorts on over my boxer briefs, put water in my running backpack and was off. 3 to 5 miles in this heat will be nice.
Every runner has started of a run with a “stitch” or felt a twinge of pain as they warmed up. Basically a stitch is a temporary pain possibly in your abdomen, legs, groin, etc.. So, what do I do when I start a run with a bit of pain? I take it easy and run slowly! I took my time warming up during the start of this run, but eventually I realized that my warm up was taking longer than expected. The pain remained. What I thought was a uncomfortable pain in left testicle grew rapidly to being a very painful cannot walk without gagging. The bouncing was excruciating, something was definitely wrong with my testicle, so I started walking, stopping, adjusting, etc. While I am not a woman with large heavy breasts, I’ve heard stories about the pain women runners feel that are not able to get proper support of their breasts with a sports bra. Like a poor sports bra, my boxer briefs weren’t up to the task this time. It got so bad that I just had to hold myself up and walk slowly down the trail home. Unfortunately, I was about 2.5 miles out. I hoped I didn’t have to pass anyone on the trail because I will definitely have my hands down my pants. No hanky panky, just painy wainy. Every other step felt like a swift kick to the groin. I wanted to cry, I wanted to throw up, but honestly I was in so much pain I don’t think my body knew how to do these things. I just stumbled forward, trying to get home.
Like many men, my relationship with my penis and testicles started off traumatic without my consent. While I am sure I don’t remember anything about the circumcision when I was a innocent little infant, I still have the scars from this barbaric task. I get a little reminder when I look down, that my penis has been an object of cultural shame and control since I was born. It wasn’t necessarily my mother’s fault, I blame it on our culture of fear and the control we demand on other people’s bodies. No, I am not Jewish, so there wasn’t a religious purpose to this snipping. The reasoning for my circumcision wasn’t my own, my mom made the decision to go along with the culture “norm” and make sure that my future sexual partners would see me as normal. I guess “normally scarred” is en vogue, yet talking about or showing penises and balls is still taboo and/or perverted. It’s my belief that if we don’t talk about men’s genitals and the struggles they deal with in a compassionate way, we create lonely and shameful men. I personally don’t want to feel lonely and shameful of my amazing penis and balls, I’ve got a wonderful set! I want to both celebrate my equipment and take good, healthy care of them without shame, like it was any other part of my body.
Back to the run!
8pm
When I finally got home from my run, either the pain had subsided or I was getting used to it. Queue male reasoning that I’ve tamed the pain. As I laid on the ground with my hips up, I scrolled through all of the potential issues. It could be testicular torsion, epididymitis, or another vericocele. It didn’t look like it was a side effect from the vasectomy I had about 5 years ago. Worst case scenario is that my spermatic cord was possibly tangled and in a knot. What is a spermatic cord? It is a cord that is attached to each testicle that carries the vas deferens (sperm transport), blood vessels, and nerves. If the spermatic cord is knotted up, blood flow stops, nerves are screaming, and sperm cannot be part of the money shots. After 6-8 hours of a testicle being in torsion (knot), at testicle can die. To prevent this, an ultrasound must be done and emergency surgery might be needed to untie the knot. I don’t need any more babies, but I would prefer to not to walk around in extreme pain any longer or become a one balled man. Nope, something was wrong and I needed to get the experts involved fast.
I texted my amazing Nurse Practitioner with what was going on and she and I eventually concluded that I needed to head to the ER. While laying on the ground, my pain subsided until I moved again. It took me way too long to get from on my back to on my knees while my son watched in horror.
“Are you good, Daba?”
“No G, I am in a lot of pain…”
When I was able to get to a sitting position on the couch, 2 feet from where I was laying down, I started calling people. Since I was alone with my son, I called Laura to come take me to the ER, but she wouldn’t pick up. She was out with her ladies. I called several neighbors and couldn’t get through. It was about 9pm by now and many phones went to a do not disturb voicemail. I needed someone to stay at the house to watch Grayson at the very least and from what I understood about testicular torsion, time was ticking. My left testicle might be cut off from blood circulation and at 6 hours, it could die. If it was testicular torsion, I’d need to get into treatment or surgery soon because we are now about 3 hours into this horrid pain.
10pm
Finally, Laura picked up my call, raced home, and we were off. Thanks to my great neighbor and her daughter for hanging out at the house while G slept. I owe them big time! The nearest ER had a 9 minute wait time and it wasn’t joking. I checked in and soon I was being triaged, peed in a cup, and was in a room within the first 15 minutes. The pain started to subside once I stopped walking around since it was mandatory that I ride in a wheel chair or later in my rolly bed.
In my cold room with Laura, the nurse put an easy access tube in my arm and administered morphine for the pain. Almost instantly, I could adjust myself without excruciating pain. Oh, and I was high. For someone that doesn’t partake in recreational drugs outside of the infrequent gummy or a triple Cubano, the lightness was welcome. We sat there waiting for quite some time for the ultrasound technician to come by. Finally an assistant with green hair and a green shirt grabbed my bed and rolled me away through the maze of corridors and automatic doors. As we wheeled away from Laura I was well aware of the time. If this was testicular torsion, I might not have too much longer.
12pm
I am holding a towel against my stomach which is in turn holding my penis away from the action while the two ultrasound technicians slowly rub their gel covered wand over each of my testicles. In order to see if there is an abnormality, they scan and measure both of my testicles. Quickly I realized that I was the subject of an ultrasound training session which made this procedure extremely long and laborious. I fell asleep a couple times only to hear them squirt (insert fart noise) more warm gel on their wand and continue. To be woken up by fart noises while your holding your penis and two women are examining your balls is definitely a weird experience.
1pm
I am beyond exhausted by this point. I continue to fall asleep holding onto myself carefully. Finally they are pointing at the screen and making the “ahhh…” and “ohhh…” noises to which I ask, “Whatcha see?” Hydroceles and varicoceles were some terms they used, one of which I am very familiar with. What they were not saying was testicular torsion, which is great news. This means no emergency surgery and no night at the hospital. Soon I could go home!
They give me a towel and some baby wipes, leave the dark ultrasound room and let me clean up. Laying on my back for the past several hours and having morphine running through my veins has dulled the pain, so cleaning up was easy and not too painful. I pulled my boxer briefs and pants back on carefully, laid back down and waited to be rolled back to my room where Lar was probably sleeping.
2pm
Laura is nowhere to be found, but my shoes and sweatshirt were in the room. I texted her with about 2% left on my phone that I was back and then promptly fell asleep in the bright room. Finally she zombie stumbled in and soon after my Dr. and Nurse came by to pull the tubes out of me and tell me I am free to go. They detected nothing major and couldn’t understand what made the pain so severe in the first place. I have a prescription for pain meds and a packet of paperwork to read through. I slipped my shoes on and slowly followed Laura out of the hospital with both of my testicles intact! I escaped!!
Humor aside, I took care of myself. I am proud of that. There were points during the visit to the ER when I became anxious at the bill we are accruing for every hour, every specialist, every light bulb’s electricity, and 24 hour news channel we watched. Money I can make, I am decently good at it when the economy is not shut down because of a global pandemic. Health I cannot reverse if I leave it to chance like many men tend to do. Self care for the parts of me that shouldn’t be taboo, difficult to talk about, or shamed. I have one life with this amazing body and I want to enjoy it to the very end.
I am doing better. I am able to walk without any pain and have some follow up appointments to schedule. Life is good, sometimes I don’t get to choose the rollercoaster I’m on.
I finished writing this from bed, surrounded by tissues, zinc lozenges, a cup of water, and a mug of tea. After I got back from the hospital, I felt awful beyond my groin – sore throat, coughing, fever, all the symptoms from the pandemic. I took a COVID test this morning and VOILA….I tested positive for COVID. Fucking, yay! So, here goes phase two of my self-care journey this week. Care for my balls, care for my immune system. (cough cough)
Hello, I am Shelton. 