Dr. WHO??’s BodyBlog

So I had the wonderful experience yesterday of  spending the night in the E.R. It all started around 4:30 yesterday afternoon when my  left  nut started hurting . I had experienced this before in the past and knew right away what it was.  Being a med student and having friends who experienced similar phenomena  I  knew that the pain coming from my left testicle was caused by testicular torsion. In the past i have had similar bouts of  severe groin pain  for a  few hours  and probably should have gone to  the E.R., but the symptoms resolved  probably because my testicle "de-torsed"[sic] off it’s own volition….however,  yesterday evening that didn’t happen.  I was studying at a desk  the whole day and then I started to have the pain like I said before around 4:30…it was an aching pain   that was centered in my left scrotum.  I tried all the things I had in the past to rectify the situation…walking, stretching,  and even laying down…I even tried to manually detorse my own testicle…of course that induced more pain and was to no avail…by 7:45 pm I was in pretty unbearable pain, but still reluctant to go to theE.R….as I am sure you can understand….it’s a very uncomfortable and awkward predicament…but by 8:30 pm I decided I better go…the pain was so bad I couldn’t sit still and I started to sweat…I went to the bathroom to assess my condition and  noticed that my left scrotal was tender and swollen  and was also warm to the touch …all  ominous signs  of  an aberrant  process  occurring….it was time to go to the E.R. stat…to save my left testicle or all least alleviate the intense pain. As soon I got to the hospital I started feeling nauseous from the pain and dropped my lunch off in the parking lot before entering triage. I was fortunate to be going to one of the local hospitals where  I will be working as a  med student….my friends who took me to the hospital  knew  who to talk to  to speed up the process…this was  a medical emergency…TIME WAS TESTICLE…if you get my drift.  I unfortunately still had to wait  almost an hour before a tech came and performed an ultrasound on my testicles.  My 3 school buddies also got to see the ultrasound  and told me that it didn’t look good…clearly reduced blood flow to my left testicle as compared to my right one…and  the left one  was surrounded  by fluid  suggesting  pathology….at that point  the urologist on-call was paged to the hospital…about 25 minutes later…he had a quick look at the ultrasound and my "sac" …he told me that they weren’t even going to try to manually detorse it cause  it was beyond that at this point…he said he would have to operate…STAT…hmmmmmmmm….lot’s of things were running through  my mind…one, will I loose my testicle….two,  an incision to my scrotum (the though of any sharp object down there frightened the hell out of my)…three,  how much more pain will I have and  how long will my recovery be…those are just some of the thoughts….in any case, things went pretty smoothly from then on. I was  put under anesthesia and the urologist went to work.  He told me the procedure itself only took  20 minutes or so…they made a one inch incision took out the left testicle and  detorsed it . They then had to wait for another 25 minutes  to make sure that the testicle was perfused. Apparently my testicle  was 720 degrees  torsed and the ischemia (reduced blood flow) had caused my testicle to  loose the pink color it should have had…but after  25 minutes the color came back…whhhheeeeeew….I wasn’t going to be "half the man I used to be"  as the song goes.  The incision was closed  and I woke up to a nice nurse in the  PACU (post-anest . care unit)…she asked me about the pain  and I told her I still had some…so she put some more dilauded (morphine )  in my IV…I spent the next hour with her asking about my pain and infusing more dilauded…soon  I felt good enough to stand  and put my clothes back on, but I definitely was  a little wobbly on my feet.  In any case, my boys picked me up and we stopped at the pharmacy on the way back to my place to fill my hydrocodone script.  The nurse told me to eat some food and take a pill before going to sleep…when I got home all I could do was stumble to my bed and pass right out…this morning I  took  some pain killer and again this afternoon…still feeling pain , but far far far better than it had been! In any case, that was quite an experience…wish me a speedy recovery…I am not supposed to lift or do anything for the next two weeks until I have a follow-up visit with  the urologist.  I have also been to scared to check  my scrotum out today.  I  urinated once but  totally avoided  my scrotum. It was weird  to wake up in the PAC unit with a  weird jock-strap contraption  containing a bunch of gauze  in the front all around my "package".  At any rate, I don’t wish this experience upon my worst enemies.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 4:34 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.