Archived Blog Mar 23 2007

The Absolutely True Ball Story

Prologue:

I am a hypochondriac and always have been and always will be. On the other hand, I have many legitimate ailments, and as one doctor told me, "the difference between you and a hypochondriac is that you actually have stuff wrong with you." It is also worth noting that I have a "healthy" addiction to marijuana and exercise, although not at the same time. Finally, at the time of this storry, I aws living in Washington heights in the most northern part of New York. The closest hospital to me and the one in the story was Columbia Presbyterian. The events that follow took place circa. March of 2006.

The Story:

It was late Thursday night and once again, I was in my room lifting weights, specifically performing the bent-over row, when my testicles decided to swap spots. The bent-over row is when one stands with legs straight and separated, lean over and pull a large barbell up to one's chest. To clarify, I was lifting the barbell with my hands, not my testicles. As my muscles contracted during one of the repetitions I could feel my testicles cross over each other inside my scrotum as if they were performing a Chinese fire-drill. At that point, there wasn't much I could do about it, because it was cold, and when the testicles switched, they were somewhere between my lungs and my liver. I had no access until several hours later, after a hot shower.

Sitting on my bed, wearing boxers and a t-shirt, I quickly took a couple of hits from the marijuana pipe I keep on my bed stand. I turned on the television and began watching an episode of South Park I had seen the day before. The jokes were still fresh in my mind, and as the pain in my now relaxed scrotum began to well, I was still laughing, engrossed in the episode, oblivious to the intense pain I was about to feel. When the pain finally came to the point where I could no longer ignore it, the idea that my testicles had indeed switched positions re-entered my mind, and I sent my hands down there to investigate.

As my hands took their well-traveled trip to my crotch, the pain was steadily increasing. Going by feel alone, my hands were able to untangle the knotted mess that had been my two spermatic cords. Lying on my back, when the testicles were untied, I experienced a feeling of relief so massive, it was if I had defecated after holding my fecal matter in for a number of years. That feeling multiplied by one thousand.

I sighed and exhaled. The sensation of relief from this kind of testicular pain was sensational and all-encompassing, as if I was melting into a puddle of pure contentment. Far off in the background, I could hear the tinny voice of the pain still lingering, reminding me of the ordeal I had just survived. The lingering voice did not dissipate, however. Growing from a small vestigal yelp to a blood curdling scream, the pain rushed back to my testicles. The pain was similar to the one before, but this one was sharper, deeper, and throbbing. My eyes opened as I thought that perhaps a microscopic nuclear device had been detonated inside my bladder. I forced myself up and off the bed. Blood began rushing from my head, and I became dizzy. Reaching for my phone, I began calculating the price of having an ambulance come. Having not died yet, I decided not to call emergency and call the next best thing: my father.

It was now around one am on Friday morning, and as my dad picked up the phone, I realized I had once again broken my own rule of not talking to my parents when I'm high. However, the testicular pain took first priority, and the conversation had to happen. While I lay in bed moaning, he went onto the internet and did some quick research on testicular pain and the crossing of spermatic cords.

The reaction was not as I had hoped. "Well, maybe you should go to the hospital." Although to me, it sounded much more like he was saying, "Well, maybe you won't have kids." Great. Just great. I asked him if I should get an ambulance, but my father, a loving man said, "No, just take a cab."

I walked up the street towards the intersection that was a veritable cornucopia of cabs. I no longer felt like a single entity. It wasn't only me walking up the street, but it was me with my testicles. The pain was still immense, and I couldn't help but wonder why the testicles had decided to pull such a stunt as that. "Come on, guys," I thought. "What did I ever do to you?" I had never let them get kicked or punched or sucked on too hard. Maybe they were angry that I had recently been giving them regular haircuts. Maybe they were just jerks. Either way, I they needed to get in line.

It was around this time that I noticed how much my stomach was hurting. Of course, there was the lower stomach pain that is associated with testicular trauma, but there was also a bloating gas pain.

For the last few weeks, I had been drinking weight loss shakes at night that are effective only because they are filled with air, and fill you very easily. The drawback is that they increase anal output to an exponential degree. On top of the testicular pain, nature was calling with vehemence.

I got in a taxi cab and told the driver to take me to the emergency room, which was four blocks and literally one minute away. I gave him five dollars and went into the hospital's ER waiting area. After discussing the unfortunate circumstances relating to my testicles to three surprised people, I was admitted into the ER.

A cute nurse around my age came up to me and asked me what the problem was. At this point, I had two choices: lie to her or ruin my chances of ever having an intimate moment with her. Although my brain pleaded with me to lie, my testicles won the argument. It was quite a role reversal. Immediately, I was hooked up to an IV, which delighted me because it confirmed that I was not being my usual hypochondriac self. I was asked to give a urine sample, which I refused. Given the nature of my affliction (the brewing volcano in my stomach, not the nuclear wasteland in my scrotum), I was worried that if I urinated, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from passing all of my waste and then all of my internal organs, or at least, the two organs which had landed me in the hospital in the first place. She put me in a hospital bed and told me to wait there. Before she left, I asked her a question that had been plaguing the back of my mind.

"Considering I just ate, if I had to go into surgery and receive anesthetics, am I going to shit myself?" She told me that we would cross that bridge when we came to it. Easy for her to say. She wasn't the one about to drop a load in her pants.

I sat back and tried to relax. Half the time I had to close my eyes and ignore the intense testicular pain. The other half, I had to close my eyes and ignore the intense gas pain. Then the doctor came in.

He was a young, attractive, twenty-something Jew. His appearance was so surprising to me that my first question was if he was a student or a nurse. "No, I'm a doctor," he replied. But then he added, "I'm in my first year of residency." As much as I didn't want this punk rookie handling such sensitive organs, I was sure that one wet-behind-the-ear, gumshoe quack was better than no wet-behind-the-ears, gumshoe quacks. I described the problem to him, in my own words.

"So I'm working out, right? Doing bent-over lat pulls, right? Then, my fucking balls get twisted together! But I couldn't do anything at first, 'cause they were still way up inside my body.

Finally, a few hours later, I was able to untwist them, and man, you don't know relief until you have untwisted your balls!" And of course I then described to him what happened afterwards and why I was now in the emergency room. He asked me about some of medical history and looked in my eyes and questioned me about my marijuana usage. I explained to him that I had been smoking everyday for the last six years and knew what the fuck I was doing and that it had nothing to do with the testicles. He seemed to understand.

He then told me to drop my pants so that "we" could have a look at them. Now, most of the time, when a grown man asks if he can look at my nuts, the answer is going to be "No." Or perhaps a firmer, "No. Not on the first date! What, do you think I'm a slut?"

The examination was as short as it was embarrassing. He told me to get back on the table, and then the real fun began.

"Ok, Evan. We're going to need to get a stool sample."

Ahhh… Finally, relief!

"Ok, so should I just go the bathroom or…"

"No, I can just do it right here," he replied simply.

I heard what he said, but it took a second to register what he meant.

I had recently been working on a comedy bit about my anus, and the fact that nothing had ever entered it. I had done research on this, including calling both of my surprised parents and asking them about the first six years of my life. As far as I could tell, I was an anal virgin, and I planned on keeping it that way. Suddenly, this 24 year streak would be broken. Not by a fellow inmate or an imaginative girlfriend, but by a trustworthy male doctor. I voiced my opinion.

"Oh, God damn it!" I thought about refusing it for a second, but it was clearly the only choice.

"Fine! Be gentle."

Before I was anally penetrated, I had a fear that, because I was so gassy and backed up and was clenching my sphincter tightly, any insertion to disturb the tender balance would result in a spray of feces not unlike Old Faithful. I clenched my body in anticipation.

The greasy finger slid in and wiggled around like a curious earthworm—with knuckles. While it was inside me, I realized that it wasn't nearly bad as I had thought. All my hydrocarbons were still in my system, there were no leaks, no flesh was torn, and, if I had been a different person born in a different place in a different time, it would have felt good. The finger came out, along with a large amount of my dignity, and apparently, a small amount of feces to analyze. The streak was broken. I had lost my "bumginity." Dejectedly wiping my butthole as the doctor left, I said the only thing I could think to say:

"Call me!"

Still, that guy's finger was about eight and a half inches long. And it was really veiny too.
Minutes later the doctor came back with good news. I didn't have any hemorrhoids, polyps, or symptoms of colon cancer. Of course, I hadn't though that I did have these things, but I trying to find the silver lining from the situation. The man who had put his finger in my anus told me that there was another step to take. I was going to have to get an ultra-sound done to my nutsack. I thanked him, and he put in the order for me to be wheeled over to the ultrasound.

I moved into the wheel chair and sat there, alone with my thoughts and my searing gas pain, thinking about how much had changed about me in the last few minutes. The testicular pain, however, did not want to be ignored, and I became distracted. I looked around to see the young nurses talking with each other about such mundane things as their own lives. I found myself furious that they weren't in deep mourning for the traumatic events that had just taken place. Furthermore, I was angry because, in an ER, there is a certain amount of professionalism you must maintain in front of patients. I didn't care what they do in their spare time, whether it's monopoly in the OR, spin the bottle in the supply closet, or naked twister in the pharmacy, when one is in front of a patient, one must pretend that one cares about ones job.
At some point, after just sitting there, the cute doctor-man looked around the ER.

"Hey! Is someone going to take this patient to Ultrasound?"

Yes, the cute doctor was my hero. He was my knight in shining armor. My savior. My Christ. And in that instant, I was a homosexual. I wanted nothing else than to make love to that doctor for being so kind and caring to me. It was too bad I couldn't because of my severe genital pain.
The nurses looked at each other, obviously trying their hardest to not acknowledge my presence in the room.

"I don't want to take him."

"Me neither."

"Don't look at me."

The doctor was getting angry, and pointed at someone and told him to take me to the Ultrasound. He was a young Hispanic man in a large black T-shirt that had a skull on it. He walked over and grabbed the back of my chair, obviously hating his job or life, or whatever it was that made him into such an aloof creep.

He pushed my and my chair for what seemed to be miles to the other part of the hospital. The whole while, I tried to make small talk with him, but my efforts at easing the awkwardness went unanswered. It was around three am, and the hospital halls were empty, so as he pushed me around, it was only we two, with no one else to walk by or make me feel like I wasn't in some sort of horrible nightmare where up is down and left testicle is right testicle. The nice young man dropped me off in the Doppler Imaging area, and went back to doing whatever it is he actually does. May Jesus (read "hey zeus") bless him.

So, there I sat, waiting to be ultra sounded, as a couple nurses and janitors came to the area, sat down in the couches of the waiting area, and proceeded to watch a movie. Apparently, this is what happens late at night in hospitals. People watch movies while millions are without health insurance. After about fifteen minutes of "jarhead," a youngish, also attractive man came and took me into the ultrasound room.

I relayed the story to him for what seemed to be the billionth time. He told me to take off my pants and pull out my wiener and nuts. I was surprised that the ultrasound couldn't see through fabrics and clothing, even though it could see through skin. I told him that, and he informed me that it couldn't, I would have to remove my wiener. To which I responded that I had thought the ultrasound would be a stronger device than that, expressed in the words "Damn, that shit is weak as fuck!" He laughed, and we proceeded.

So, I was to take out my penis and testicles and lay on my back. Then he gave me one towel to go under my nuts, so as to prop them up for the best vantage point, as if they were being displayed in a museum, and another towel to put over my penis, which was laying against my stomach, pointed towards my head, like a checkmated chess king. Of course, I was very thankful that he had given me this other towel to cover my penis. He was thoughtful enough to make sure I wasn't embarrassed, because talking at length about my junk to everyone in the hospital for two hours and them showing him my balls and letting him touch them like he was shopping for produce was fine, but if he had accidentally seen my penis, then I would have been embarrassed.

He did the test, and of course I asked the question: "Is it a boy or a girl?" He laughed. Then I asked him if he'd every heard that one before, and he told me that he had only heard it about a trillion times. Of course, I wasn't on my A material, because I was in severe testicular pain.
The young Hispanic man magically appeared and took me back to the ER. The trip back was almost identical to the trip there in every aspect, instead this time we were going the other way down the hall. He then left again, going back to doing whatever it is he actually does.

The cute doctor was back. My love told me the prognosis, and it was good. There was blood flow to both my testicles, and it seemed that they had come out of this unharmed. He that if this type of thing happens again, they might have to sow the balls to the sides of the sack, but even though that procedure sounded very, very attractive, it probably wouldn't have to occur. There was only one thing left: the urine sample. I nodded that I understood, and then shook hands with the doctor—the doctor who had violated me and stolen my heart—and said goodbye to him forever. He still haunts my dreams.

The attractive nurse, who had, by now, told all her friends about why they should never date me, asked me if I was ready to give my urine sample. Still reeling from the gas pain, I agreed, but asked the simple question of whether or not I could lock the bathroom door. She said that I could, and it was the best news I had heard all night. I got out of the chair, headed for the bathroom, waddling like a penguin in order to keep my buttocks from literally exploding.
I sat down on the toilet and urinated into the cup and put it aside. Now was the moment I had been waiting for. I unclenched my sphincter and let nature take its course. What followed next was a fart. Not just any fart, mind you, but the longest fart I have ever experienced, heard of, or thought was possible. The fart lasted about twelve seconds. Now, that doesn't sound like a long time, but read the following out loud. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Four Mississippi. Fiev Mississippi. Six Mississippi. Seven Mississippi. Eight Mississippi. Nine Mississippi. Ten Mississippi. Eleven Mississippi. Twelve Mississippi.

Good. Now realize that that whole time was one powerful, relieving fart. It was a fart for the ages. It was like World War II, but a fart, like World Fart II. Or Fart War II. Or World War Fart. Or Fart Fart Fart. Yeah, the last one.

The urine test was complete. The gas was passed. The balls were fine, and I was discharged around 3:30 am. I walked out of the hospital, feeling much better, and headed back towards my apartment. The cold air whipped through my hair, and brushed lightly on my recovering testicles, reminding me of the intense pain I had felt so soon before. There was still a dull, throbbing pain, but it was manageable. The darkness of the sky and the brightness of the street lights underlined the dichotomy between life and death, sleep and lucidity, truth and lies, and left testicle and right testicle.

Epilogue:

The next few days I spent a lot of time playing with my testicles, and not how I usually play with them. I was analyzing them for damage and compulsively checking that they hadn't been twisted. In fact, I was acting rather rough with them, almost like someone picking at a scab. I kept flipping the left one over and over again, and in my mind, I felt like I was playing tether ball, but instead of the tether ball pole it was spermatic cord. The pain remained for a few days. Maybe I shouldn't have used that hammer.

I saw my primary care physician, and she referred me to a urologist. I set up an appointment with him, and waiting. When one is in testicular pain, it is surprising to see how many times you are reminded about the existence of the testicles. It is virtually not stop. People were referencing testicles left and right, it seemed, and sometimes it wasn't that blatant. As I got on the train platform to go to my urologist, a man walked by my with a plastic bag that continued only two oranges. I wanted to look skyward and say, "Yeah god, I get it. Ok?"

So it turned out, after many anonymous people fondled and caressed my balls, that there is nothing seriously wrong with me, and I will be able to have kids. I still get some pains today, but it seems that everything is doing well with them. I have made some changes to my life to accommodate my testicles. Actually, I have only made one change, and that is I no longer perform the bent-over row, the exercise that got me in trouble in the first place. I hope you have enjoyed this story, and for the love of god, please don't tell anyone about it, it's very embarrassing.