The Singing Detective Returns from Hospital

Well, I've had an interesting 24 hours, to say the least.

It started at cricket practice last night, where a seemingly innocuous ball from a young spin bowler hit me in the box, the abdominal protector that looks after the family jewels.

It smarted for a moment, but I carried on batting - very badly - for a few more minutes until I felt something give way in my groin area. I wandered off, collapsed, and managed to remove my kit to reveal that a certain part of my anatomy had swollen to several times its normal size.

My initial though was; "Oh shit. Strangulated hernia in the scrotum."

Which is quite a long thought, but I was worried as hell as it turned out I could barely walk, and attempting to ride my bike an exercise in barbed wire straddling agony. I walked 2km back to my flat, called my folks and got taken straight to Newark hospital, where I explained what had happened, was given a syringe of sickly sweet morphine to swallow, and after two hours was examined by a doctor who said I needed an ultrasound at City hospital.

Without any means of transport this time, I waited for four hours for an ambulance to appear at 3am to drive me ricketily but cheerfully to Nottingham where I was directed to a Urology ward full of elderly ghosts snoring and falling out of bed in a grim half light. A night nurse then made me stick swabs in my nose and groin to check for MRSA and told me my weight was 90kg, but he was a friendly chap and I began to feel a bit less stressed.

Various doctors came and examined my goodies, rather forcefully at times, and explained that I certainly had severe bruising and blood clotting down there, but if a scan revealed a torn testicle, then surgery was the only option.

The scan was nerve-wracking, and surreal. A very attractive radiologist and her make colleague smeared me with cold gel, and proceeded to move the sensor around while looking on the screen for unpleasant sounding parts of my anatomy to make sure they were still there.

I told her she deserved £200 an hour for having to do a job such as this, while it reminded me of Michael Gambon as The Singing Detective desperately trying to think of boring things while Joanne Whalley vaselined his genitals. Well, it didn't really, as we talked about cricket.

As it turned out, I was lucky. I am not torn or ruptured, just swollen and bloody sore, and in dire need of a pint while wearing very baggy jeans.

The NHS staff. needless to add, were all fantastic.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.06.19