Thursday 22 January 2009

Ugly Stuff No One Really Wants To Know

It was twelve days ago when I first pooped onto a piece of toilet paper, scooped a tiny piece of that poop onto a faecal sample stick and then popped and sealed it inside a small plastic tube. Then I put the tube in my bag and went to hospital. I headed for the testicle screening room first to make an appointment. But when I was told that I didn’t have to make an appointment, that I could just turn up any day before 9.30, I thought to hell with it, I'll come back on Monday morning, get my balls screened, my blood tested and hand in my poop at the same time.

But I didn’t do that because I was sidetracked and slightly lazy. Instead I didn’t return until yesterday, so basically, I walked around with a piece of my own poop in my bag for twelve days.

Morag found this to be the height of vileness. She was properly disgusted.

It was in a tube though. No biggy.

At the weekend Morag and I went to the wildlife photography exhibition at the National History Museum, where there is a bag search before entry. I opened my bag. The security guard performed a perfunctory check and was about to let me pass when the tube caught his eye. I don’t know what he thought it was but he lifted it slowly out of the bag.

‘It’s faecal matter,’ I said.

He placed it back in my bag.

We went in.

The wildlife photography exhibition is fantastic by the way. This one is my favourite.



So yesterday I went back to the hospital and a young lady moved what is apparently called a transducer over my testicles. Before she did this however, she covered the smooth head of the transducer in warm gel. Once the nurse gets going with the transducer, the effect upon the surface of the scrotum is a very pleasant one. In fact, you can quite easily convince yourself that that is not in fact a transducer floating wetly over your nether regions, but the warm wet tongue of a beautiful woman. This however, under the circumstances, is highly inadvisable, as genital engorgement at this point would just be embarrassing. Believe me.



Another good thing about the scrotal ultrasound is that you get your results immediately. This is particularly good if your results are negative, as mine were. Chatting to the nurse at the end, I asked her if she thought the pain could therefore be stress-related. She half-shrugged. She didn’t really know about stress. She knew about blood flow and epididymitis, the physical stuff. ‘Yeah, I guess,’ I said. ‘I suppose the psychological stuff is a whole different ball game.’

Unfortunately, I kind of mumbled this because we were both speaking at the same time, and the nurse didn’t hear. When I realised I’d inadvertently made a wonderful pun and that it had been wasted, I came really close to saying it again, but then I thought, no. That would be sad. I’d just blog it instead.

Ball game!

I also handed in my poop piece – although I had replaced the 12-day old sample with a fresh sample, you’ll be pleased to hear.

I didn’t get my blood test however, because there were too many people waiting and I had to rush across town to keep a dental appointment.

My dentist is very chipper. Almost annoyingly so. He happily explained that it would cost me around £350 to have the tooth that broke refilled and the rest cleaned. He was overjoyed.

Treatment starts next week.

That's it. No more grossness for a while.



But the upshots so far are good. No testicle tumours, no hideous unforeseen and hugely painful tooth furies.

So far, so good.

Fingers crossed.

We can get through this.



By the way, if you are male and you feel you might have a problem with your testicles (or let’s face it, even if you don’t), I recommend you pop along to your GP and hook yourself up with an ultrasound examination. It really does feel like a tongue.



Share on Facebook! Digg this

13 comments:

Some Chilean Woman said...

I was fascinated reading this blog...then again, I'm a nurse wannabe.

Yay for healthy testicles!

Anonymous said...

My own "ultrasonic" appointment a few years ago (I could never remember the right word) was conducted by a genial, mid-50s grey-haired bloke who kept asking me to "just hold the old man a little further over to the left, please".

The whole tongue thing did not occur to me.

[My comment moderation word verification thingy for this comment is "fecas", which seems very appropriate.)

La Bête said...

Eerily appropriate, yes.

At the place I went they ask you to hold the old man back with a sheet of medical kitchen roll. Makes the whole thing feel even more erotic frankly.

Stuart Galligan said...

Oh, handing-in your poo. Please tell me the medical service has enough sense of humour to make the container see through.

After I had my Snip, I had to hand in some, I'll say it, spunk.

I was expecting to be taken to a small room full of porn, and with a lock on the door. Which, let's face it, is quite a nice day out.

But no. You have to Produce the sample at home, and bring it in.

I lived a short bike ride from the hospital, but it was up a steep hill. I handed the sample over, all flushed and out of breath. I bet she thought I'd done it in the car park.

La Bête said...

Oh, that's funny.

Yes, the poop was in a transparent tube in a transparent plastic bag with POOP! written on it in big brown letters.

Shimacat said...

Ugh. I read that post as I was eating dates. Small brown dates. Thanks for that.

The security word is 'imetswo' which is perhaps quite evocative of a newly-discovered state, when your face is screwed up and so are your toes. Screwed up as in wrinkled in distate, not screwed up as in completely neurotic. Neurotic. Not erotic.

Can I stop now?

Anonymous said...

"No biggy"

Was this an intentional pun? When I was very little, my mum used to call poos biggies, but I've not come across anyone else using the term.

Ha. I'd forgoteen about that. The word "biggy" has nothign to do with bigness for me, it is istead a rather onomatopoeic word for something soft, brown and squelchy.

Anonymous said...

i got to mail in my poo when i had that tested - well, it was a poo stripe on a bit of cardboard. i was almost as excited about putting poo in the post!

seeing the monkey on fire made me hungry. that's just wrong.

when i had my girl bits examined with Buzzy McTwatprobe, they used a condom, but the gel was cold. it wasn't awful... shame all exams aren't as pleasant as the one you had!

Anonymous said...

Gah. That's brought back memories of taking someone else's poop to be analysed. Let's just say that I'm a very dutiful daughter. It's also made me think of smear tests, which are decidedly un-erotic. I have SEXUAL ABUSE SURVIVOR written all over my medical notes, so the nurse always locks the door to the smear-test-room, which is supposed to make me feel better. Oddly enough, being half naked and locked in a room with a stranger who is poking around in my lady garden does not fill me with joy.

I'm glad your bits are all okay. Good work.

Pearl

Anonymous said...

Sudders, my boyfriend calls poos "biggies". I've never heard anyone else use the term, and nor has he, so I shall have to tell him he's found a friend in poo-terms. He'll be delighted. His family are incredibly posh, so I've always thought of biggies as posh poos.

Shimacat said...

Pearl, I've never heard the term 'lady garden' before and I am going to steal it. That's marvellous.

Anonymous said...

Velvet bricks -that's what my ma calls biggies that slip out easily.

Ann Anon

WV verrucak

Anonymous said...

In the absence of feed-back friday, and in honour of the impending Burns Night celebrations, I'd like to share a little ditty with you that's been doing the text rounds here in dreary old Northern Ireland. It goes thus... (ehhhh, it helps if ye git intil scottish mode furst, ken?)
"Rabbie Burns wuz cumin hame fae the pub when he rounds a corner and sees two folk goin' at it! The poliss arrives an' says 'til Rabbie he'll have to go to court to testify against them. At court, the judge asks him what he'd seen... "Ah saw two people fuckin'!" says he.
"You can't use that language in court" exclaims the judge.
"Weeeel..." says Rabbie "Ah wuz cummin' back fae Brigadoon,
When Ah saw twa people lyin' doon,
Her skirt wuz high, his arse wuz bare,
His cock wuz in amongst her hair,
His balls were swingin' to an' fro- An' if that's no fuckin', then Ah don't know!"
...
Well, made me chuckle anyway!
Jolly Burn's Nacht!