Diary entries, like dreams and phobias, can be dangerously close to wishes. One must be careful.
I think I hinted recently that I harboured a castration fetish. Partly because of these troubling pains in my reproductive organs, but mostly because the line of my suits would be improved.
The real reason, of course, was because I thought it was an interesting and uncommon thing to read in a diary. Anything for an interesting and uncommon read.
The old joke (possibly music-hall). A tailor is measuring a man for a new suit.
Tailor: And which side does Sir dress?
Customer: Away from the window.
Well, I hereby withdraw, exorcise and cancel out such arch wishes for eunuch emulation. I would like to make it clear to all possible universes than I very much want to remain intact in that department, just painlessly so. Thank you.
I mention this because the other week I once again troubled my GP, who once again ruled out all the major causes for concern.
Me to a friend: I’ve been officially cleared of cancer, AIDS, and all possible STDs and infections.
The Friend: Well that’s always a plus, I find.
Back at the doctor’s, the GP is starting to think I’ve been withholding information:
GP: Do YOU have any idea what it could be?
Me: Not really, apart from voodoo.
[In which case, please could the pin-sticker in question kindly desist and contact me to resolve their grudge in a more civilised manner. Life’s too short, really. Even for voodoo.]
Back with the GP.
Me: Well… it’s been going on for months. And the pains vary from a slight itching to the sensation that someone has applied sandpaper to my testicles.
(long pause)
GP: And HAS someone…?
Me: (very quickly) I don’t go to those sort of parties.
He sighs and books me in at the Whittington Hospital on Highgate Hill for an ultrasound scan. “Though I don’t expect it to find anything.”
He was wrong.
And here’s where I’m tempted to end the entry to keep the reader in some sort of suspense.
===
But I couldn’t handle having to bat off all the emails if I did.
So, last week, deep within the bowels of that newly-expanded sci-fi leisure centre that calls itself the Whittington, I lay back on an adjustable chair in one of those odd 1970s gowns that lace up in a back-to-front way, and which never quite looks right. A strange man introduced himself to me and promptly applied lubricant and a plastic device to my nethers.
The good news is that I am not pregnant, and that everything between my legs is normal and correct. Nothing to really worry about. What he did find, however, is the men’s health equivalent of varicose veins. Called a varicocele. Veins and their valves not doing the right thing, blood not going where it should. Absolutely minor stuff, I’m assured, but if it continues to cause pain I can have an operation to fix it. And no, not that drastic an operation.
He said the only side-effect of not having the op might be a drop in fertility. The very least of my possible worries, suffice it to say.
So I’m setting these thoughts down in order to clear them from my mind. The more I don’t set them down, the more I dwell on them, and the worse I’m probably making things. Diary entries can also be exorcisms, even conducive to mental well-being.
It’d be nice if the pains went away and I didn’t have to have an operation. So that’s what I’m really wishing for, in this instance. Good, got that off my chest. Well, not my chest.
The only operation I’ve had to date was also for varicose veins, in my left leg about five years ago. They usually happen to pensioners. And sometimes, to younger men who act like pensioners.
At the Whittington, they currently give you these huge plastic pagers which flash and beep noisily when they’re ready to see you. I can only hope this system is not used for the heart disease department.
