Weakly Lawyer

Today will be recorded as one more time in my life that I beat my own body. I just got back from the MD and it turns out that my swollen spleen is not infected. You see, contrary to a normal, healthy, late-twenty-something male, my body really dislikes like me. In fact, I’m in a constant battle with myself—most recently, my spleen. But my story of physical self-hate is a much longer story than a simple battle with my menial spleen. Hell, you can live without a spleen—it’s nothin’. Thus, I present to you the first in a three-part series about my simultaneously feeble and resilient immune system. Warning: this first story is not for the feint of heart.

I was 7 years old and in grade 2 (I think that’s normal so far). I was riding bikes with my best friend Lindsay Hayes when I noticed a ‘funny feeling’ in my berries (of my twig and berries). I told Lindsay—he laughed and provided nothing helpful. It continued to irritate me all day. I eventually had no choice but to tell an adult, so I told my mother. She sent me to my father. My father was confused and uncomfortable. Eventually the family doctor was beckoned. He checked me out, which was still permitted in those days. He said to monitor the situation overnight. The night was not kind to my left berry, nor the nerves attached—it was huge… and it hurt like searing hell. For most males, that indicates a twisted testicle, but not for me. The ultrasound showed that my berry was still properly attached to its branch. My left nut quickly became the favourite medical mystery in the ultra-sophisticated Rosetown Union Hospital, where my friends’ parents (nurses and doctors) comprised what seemed to be 80% of the staff. There’s nothing quite as special as having your friends’ mom examine your swollen 7-year-old nut while your 2nd grade teacher looks on (thanks for visiting Mrs. F.).

When I was finally shipped to the City Hospital in Saskatoon, they eventually cut my manhood open down the centre to find that I had some freak bacterial infection in a blood vessel which fed my left testicle (no—it wasn’t The Clap you sick bastard, I was 7; don’t be an idiot). They cut out the infection and then stitched the left testicle to the left side of its packaging to keep it from twisting until it found a comfortable place to reside. After they sewed me up, I slept under a metal cage for three nights on a constant feed of Demerol because my left nut was so swollen and painful that I couldn’t have a bed sheet touching it. When I eventually got up to walk for the first time, relying heavily on my IV pole and a Demerol binge, my left testicle was well over halfway to my knee… granted that my legs were shorter then, but it wasn’t right. For a few days only, I had the biggest balls in Saskatchewan—and it was not glorious.

I eventually healed and had no problems until grade 10, when the same thing happened again. It was 1:00am on Tuesday, October 31st, 1993 and I was on the way home from a Moxy Fruvous/Jan Arden double bill in Regina. Actually, Jan Arden opened for Moxy Fruvous—go figure (no longer the Kings of Spain or Kings of anything except CBC entertainment news, hey Gian?). I knew right then that Jan Arden would be huge one day… she was sickly thin back then. So I was sitting in the plush back seat of my mother’s 1987 Grand Marquis when it dawned on me that something my manhood was askew, and not from the lust for a thinner Jan Arden. Fortunately, the city doctors knew well enough to feed me full of I.V. antibiotics instead slicing open my man-satchel. In a kind gesture, the abdominal surgeon who cut me the first time so many years before paid a visit and gave Ol’ Lefty a little love tap for good measure before they released me to my father’s care. My dad drove me home from the city at 8:30am and promptly dropped me off at school on a cocktail of no sleep, IV Gravol, Demerol, “The King of Spain” and a partially swollen left testicle because he was sometimes mean and irrational, which is a different issue. I fell asleep on my desk as soon as I sat down. The teacher woke me to ask what the problem was. I tried to explain that I’d been in the City Hospital all night dealing with my left nut, but I wasn’t making much sense. The teacher surely didn’t believe such a ridiculous story, but he told me to go home anyway because I’d obviously lost my Moxy. I was in no shape to drive, which didn’t matter anyway because I had no car there and I was wearing sweatpants and slippers. I couldn’t call my dad because he was the one who, for some reason, believed that I was actually learning something. My mother was a high school teacher at the same high school (of course, there’s only one high school in Rosetown), so I went into the back of her car and fell asleep. At noon, she was appalled to find me asleep in the back of her car with my hand down my pants (only for comfort’s sake… I am not my lover). Since then, I’ve regained my Moxy and my left testicle is now functioning fine by all accounts. These were only the first of many occasions when my immune system really let me down.

*Ed Note: Stay tuned for Part II: The Peruvian Death Bug—Virgin STD, Dysentery or Demonic Possession?