Waking up to a new reality

A pain in the balls

It was getting towards the end of the winter school term, early in December, when Eric felt a discomfort in his balls. Not thinking too much about it, he assumed that he had been hit in the groin when playing football, even if he hadn't noticed yesterday it seemed the most likely cause. As the day went on he pretty much managed to forget about it, although he was aware of a bit of a dull ache from time to time.

That night Eric dozed off to sleep like normal, totally forgetting his pains of earlier, but was awoken by a crippling pain in his groin during the night. It was as if he had just been kicked in the balls – without wanting to be sexist, it is a pain that only males of the species can truly understand. As the pain slowly subsided, as it usually does, he began to wonder if it had been a dream. A frighteningly realistic dream, if it was!

Life continued pretty normally although he continued getting odd the ache between his legs. He didn't think too much about it as his body had seemed to de-sensitise his pain receptors.

This went on for a week or so, before Eric thought that maybe his right testicle was getting bigger. It certainly seemed bigger than the left. After looking at the internet for answers, he managed to convince himself that it was the onset of puberty as he had read about how the genitals would start to enlarge when going through puberty.

Another week went by, when his testicle was getting towards the size of a golf ball when he began to get a bit worried that it wasn't just the onset of puberty after all.

After getting dressed for school, he went downstairs for breakfast. Luckily, Lauren, wasn't down yet, when he mentioned to his mum about his dilemma.

"Let me see.", she exclaimed.

Somewhat shyly, Eric dropped his trousers and pants.

His mum took one look and trying not to worry him, calmly said, "It's probably nothing to worry about, but I think we should get you a doctor's appointment.", but the look of horror on her face said the exact opposite.

As they heard Lauren trundling down the stairs, Eric pulled his trousers up and started to pour out his breakfast cereal. Lauren entered the kitchen in her usual not awake mode, grumbled "It's too morningy!" and poured her breakfast.

After everyone was finished, mum told Lauren to get off to school.

"What about Eric? Is he not coming?", she said.

Mum replied, "No, not this morning –he's not feeling too well. Off you go - we'll see you later!"

Once Lauren was away, mum started to quiz Eric on how long he had been suffering.

Eric told her "I first had a pain at the beginning of the month, but I assumed that that was from playing football and the ball must have hit me in the groin. The pain mostly went away, but I was still getting aches from time to time, but I thought it was puberty starting. It was only in the past few days that it had really started to swell and I started to think something might be not quite right!"

Mum looked him and said, "I'm no doctor, but I think we ought to get some medical advice", quickly adding, "Just to be sure – better safe than sorry.", so as to not worry Eric. (Although, once again, her face was showing a very different reaction)

As soon as the doctors' surgery opened mum called. After a few attempts to get through, the phone was answered. Mum explained to the receptionist about Eric's dilemma.

The receptionist suggested that they come down to the surgery right away, where a nurse would examine Eric, and if necessary they would ensure Eric could see a doctor.

Fifteen minutes later, mum and Eric were sitting outside the nurses room, waiting their turn to be seen. Another fifteen minutes and they were called in.