Spongebloodbath

I was in pain all day yesterday after the operation. My son summed up my thoughts by quoting Dean Venture from the "Are you there, God? It's me, Dean." episode of The Venture Brothers. Dean has to deal with testicular torsion in that episode: "Suddenly it just felt like someone kicked me in the rocks, and—and they never took their foot away!"

Last night I took off my bandages to wash up and change them. Someone at the surgery center told me I have to see the doctor on Monday to have some tube removed and I have to take sponge baths until then. I had an idea about what I would see under those bandages. My balls, of course, But I was under the impression there would be a small incision in my scrote seam and my sweet potato would have been removed through laparoscopic surgery. No sweat!

Under my boxers I wore a jockstrap, one size too small, I'm assuming to keep everything up tight and snug against me. Beneath that was a sort of ball-holding sling that was stuck to me through the magic of medical adhesives. I'm a very hairy guy. Medical people who stick things to me seem to feel it's a big hassle to shave the hair off first. It took about fifteen minutes of slow painful peeling. Slow is better than quick, by the way. Daniel Ariely looked into it. The mind doesn't take duration into account when gauging pain. Finally removing the sling, I found an assorted collection of absorbent materials which were all engorged with blood. Then I saw my scrotum. It was no small incision. It had been sliced open from stem to stern. There were stitches and staples. Healing is going to take longer than I thought. Then I started dripping.

As I washed myself, blood dripped onto the bathroom floor steadily, I stuck a few paper towels between my legs, and big gobs of jellied blood came off of my junk, looking like a heavy menstrual flow. I tried to poo, since my hospital gear was off, but I didn't want to force, for fear that my bag would rip open and I'd be bobbing for testicles in the toilet water. Finishing up my wash, I found what I figured was another piece of adhesive stuck to my undercarriage. I pulled it, with no luck, then tried to feel where it was stuck to my skin. It wasn't stuck to my skin. It went under my skin. then I realized this was that tube the doctor is removing on Monday. Glad I remembered before I tugged even harder. It took a little while to get myself clean, then a little while longer to get the bathroom clean.

This is good lunch reading, isn't it?