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My daughter calls the Incredible Hulk “The Credible Hulk” and if I am honest. He’s just a realistic Hulk who is skin coloured, can’t change size (or if he does, his underwear also rips off) and who can smash up more stuff than an average person, but not break through walls or jump off skyscrapers or any of that shit. That’s not believable, right.
Losing a bollock has proved to be quite the distraction. I haven’t really been thinking about too much more, or what comes next or whether I am better now. I’ve been concentrating on resting up and feeling better. And whilst I feel I have faced all this head on with the good spirits and humour that I attempt to confront all of life’s ridiculousness, I would be lying if I said that it’s not got to me at all. Not very much, but tonight I started thinking about what the next move might be and tried to second guess the info I have and thought about the possibility of the treatment not working out.
It’s a strange situation to be in as no diagnosis has yet been made. There’s just a lump of something in the middle of that lost ball that shouldn’t have been there. I have stayed positive and chosen to guess that it might be benign, partly cos I feel no different to usual and partly because other tests have thrown up nothing else particularly significant, but mainly because I am a human being and so think that if I don’t like something I can just pretend it’s not there. But I got my appointment date to see an oncologist (the letter came on Friday and it’s only a week and a bit away) and it’s in a specialist hospital and so my mind has been connecting the dots and wondering if I am going to need further treatment and if that treatment might not work and what the implications for that will be, not for me so much, but for my family.
I only really let it get to me once before, weeks ago, when I first got the confirmed news from my GP that there was quite a large something inside me and heard his voice quaver a bit on the phone as he implied, but wouldn’t say the C word (he is quite new and nervous anyway and had pretty much told me at the initial consultation that he was thought it wasn’t cancer, so he might have been feeling a bit guilty - not his fault though, he did everything right). I heard my son laughing in the next room and thought of him growing up never remembering his dad and heavy tears fell spontaneously. But it was self-indulgence. These were tears for me more than they were for Ernie. It was too early to really worry (it still is, but worry doesn’t worry about stuff like that and still does its thing). Me and my boy are good pals and I’ve put in a lot of work to get him this far and it would be pretty annoying for me if he didn’t remember a single second of the last three years (and he wouldn’t) or how much he fucking owes me. It’s borderline selfish of me to want him to remember me and also, if, as seems likely, I don’t die for a couple of decades, there’s no guarantee that he will remember me fondly, or still consider me in friendly terms. Probably not in fact.
I mean I have zero gratitude to my own parents for that time in my life and havre rewarded them with a half century of surliness and piss-taking.
Since then I have thought a little bit about worst case scenario practicalities and how I can ease the course for the people who actually matter in this (all the ones who aren’t me), but also had more of a handle on the fact that this is eminently survivable and that I am in a good position to crack wise and spread information and hope.
I’ve genuinely been finding it interesting, funny, not too frightening and relishing the creative possibilities that will come from it.
Tonight I wobbled a bit as I extrapolated the information I have into a between the lines diagnosis. But the truth is that my appointment must have been set up before the operation, so whilst I can suspect that things are moving quite quickly because they are aware this is possibly a little advanced, they still don’t know what’s going on for sure. And my appointment might just be a doctor telling me that whipping the bugger out has done the job and they’ll be keeping an eye on me. Leastways there’s no point trying to second guess it. Definitely the worst thing about this year has been the waiting for the next thing. The waits have been surprisingly short, but they don’t feel like it when you’re waiting and your mind is preoccupied. I understand that that NHS can’t really give you any indication as to which way things might be going in case they get it wrong (cf my GP right at the start of this), but the waiting and the worrying are worse than having a bollock removed. Mental torture is worse than having a bollock removed (though I suspect I might feel differently had they not bothered with the anaesthetic.
I have had tonnes of reassurance from others - I understand why most people might not talk openly about something like this, but in doing so you do mainly get very positive and instructive feedback from people who’ve already been through it.
I guess I am just pointing out that it’s OK to wobble and be scared and it’s normal to think of worst case scenario and just because testes are amusing (and they are) and losing one is sort of comical (which it isn’t, but somehow still is) and just because I am keeping it light and trying to cope with it (as I have with all unpleasantness in life) by laughing at it, that doesn’t mean that I am not taking it seriously too. Or that I am unaffected by the emotional impact. Though I think I am less affected than most.
I realise now that this is a more common thing that you might imagine. Because when you lose a ball (though they should be called eggs as they are really not spherical) you join a secret club and the other members emerge from the shadows to tell you their story and induct you into the Uniball club (it’s sponsored by the pens). It’s not most men’s instinct to be as open about this as I am being, but this is how I’ve lived my life and I am not ashamed by what has happened and nor do I think it affects who I am or my masculinity one single jot. I am lucky that it has come at this time in my life, so I am not saying it’s wrong for others to be more devastated or psychologically challenged.
I’d rather stay alive, but if I got run over tomorrow (unlikely as I am not going out, but there’s a thousand other ways to die) I’d be more grateful for the 53 years I’ve had (this is the first remotely serious medical issue I’ve had, apart from whooping cough at 8 weeks which I don’t remember much about), than the 20 or so I might have lost and feel lucky that I’d got to spend these years with my children, even if I’d be sad that I wouldn’t get to see what happens next. I am the luckiest man on earth for having got to spend any time with these champions. And my wife, who has this weekend been in more pain than me thanks to toothache and yet has still had to take on practically all the childcare and domestic stuff whilst I watch football on TV, in next to no discomfort.
But at some point you don’t get to see what happens next. There’s no way of avoiding that. It’s not a bad thing to be reminded of, even if I am convinced I will still fail to seize my days even as they count down into single figures.
