Hydro-sealing the deal
“There’s no comfortable way to do this.”
Image credit: OpenAI DALL-E
Imagine you’re sitting in a sterile seminar room in the University of Sydney Law building. It’s first year, and you’re still studying International and Global Studies.
Wie lautet deine Telefonnummer? The end-of-semester GRMN1001 exam paper asks you from the desk below. You squint at the page, plumbing the recesses of your mind for the vocabulary to answer the simple question: what is your phone number? You already know you’re not going to pass this exam, but you’ve calculated that the lowest possible mark needed to scrape a pass is a mere 35 per cent.
As you cross your legs a sharp, deep pain lurches across your right inner thigh. In a wave of exasperation, you grimace and begin to sweat. It’s the thorn in your side that’s plagued you since year 11 — your alarmingly large right testicle. Before you can even contemplate conjugating another verb, you make the decision you’d been putting off for years: It’s time to go to visit the GP about this.
You stumble out of the exam and over to Broadway Medical Centre. You disclose the pain you just endured to the GP and — while putting on a rubber glove — he says in an expressionless voice:
“There’s no comfortable way to do this.”
He takes your engorged ball in his hand, squeezing it, rolling his fingers over it, taking a closer look. You stare at the ceiling in silence. He shines a pocket torch through it and stands up. He tells you it’s a rare — but perfectly curable — issue. A hydrocele: approximately 150ml of fluid accumulated inside of your right nut.
You begin to feel woozy as he hands you a referral. A week or so later, an elderly urologist leers at you from across his desk and delivers a scornful ramble about why you should’ve come in sooner.
He tells you, “Not long ago I would have grabbed a syringe, told you to go sit on the table over there, and I’d have syphoned it straight out of you — very painful!”
You’re given a date with destiny. The crown jewels are to be tinkered with; liquid drained, glands altered, and stitches sewn. The surgery is quick but the recovery is lengthy, it feels like you’ve been kicked in the cojones for several weeks.
A friend comes over for dinner and is in fits of laughter when you tell him why you can’t walk. Your manspreading ceases to be out of necessity. At last, you breathe a sigh of relief.
