The Snip
My good lady and myself were discussing contraception. We had used just about everything in the past. The pill, the DP injection, condoms, the coil and on a few occasions just chancing it.
Each had its own foibles and good/ bad points. My lovely lady hates pills and would “forget” to take her daily little dimpled packet reminders. She would then take three or four day’s worth to catch up. This made her as sick as a pike and definitely not inclined for any horizontal shenanigans.
The DP injection made her swell up two dress sizes and develop the mood swings of teenager on drugs. One minute angrier than a bag full of hungry cats to more morose than a dumped and drunk best pal. Again with the sex drive of a marooned monk with hemaroids.
Condoms were a better option but my member and me never really got to grips with them. Encase my Tiny Johnston in latex and he has real trouble staying “on mission”
No matter how stimulating the vision, gravity would always have the upper hand. I suppose sex in zero gravity might be an option but a bit more of an extravagance than I planned. Besides I’ve never seen it in the Ann Summer’s catalogue.
The coil worked well for years. Although I used to have nightmares about the two little strings somehow becoming entangled with my equipment and us heading to A&E as very unlikely Siamese twins. The coil worked well right up till one bath time when a routine tug on the strings resulted in the thing popping out into the bubble bath.
She now keeps it in her jewellery box. As a piece of engineering it is quite remarkable but on close inspection I realized it was mostly plastic and could never have picked up Radio 2 or taxis after all.
So it was time for a new contraceptive approach. Time for me to step up to the mark. Now I have never desired a family, must lack the gene or biological imperative or something. Never could stand newborns all poo and crying. Besides I have two strapping boys that my girl had cooked earlier in her life and two little nephews. Vasectomy was the way to go. Sounds like a dodgy seaside resort in Cyprus but off the Doc’s I trooped.
The Doc was a lovely lady of the locum variety I had not had the pleasure of meeting before.
“I’d like a vasectomy please” says I, hoping that no goods would have to be inspected at this early juncture. No, some leaflets on “being sure” were produced which I lied and said I had read.
“Ok” she says, “expect a letter from the hospital in a couple of weeks”
Three days later a letter lands. So soon?
No not the big day just an appointment for a consultation. The day of the consultation arrives and I’m not sure how much inspection is going to be needed. A bath and shower and get areas as clean as possible. A dilemma, to shave or not shave. I decide to shave, needed a trim anyway.
Arrive at the Urology (the study of piss) department and after being weighed and pressure tested I meet Dr “Umbofdata”. To my shame I never caught how to pronounce his name properly. A huge African gentleman he invites me to drop them and lie down on the couch. He comments on my “last chicken in the shop” nads and asks about pubic hair loss. I explain about not knowing whether to shave or not and joke about the minor abrasions to my scrotum caused by my inexpert swordsmanship in the bath. He doesn’t smile. I suppose looking at other men’s genitalia all day would either cause you to loose your sense of humour or have it develop along some other more “specialised” lines.
He warms his hands, for which I’m grateful, and proceeds with the examination. I stare fixedly at a point on the wall. I have never had another man touch my crown jewels before. It is a surreal moment. The theme tune from “Shaft” keeps entering my head as I’m mentally trying to instruct my parts not to show any sign of enjoying the process. All over. I have to wait for another letter.
Two weeks of ball scratching shaver rash later another letter arrives. This is it the real deal, the big day. No breakfast on the day. Bloody hell even a condemned prisoner gets that.
I turn up at the hospital at the allotted time. I’m armed with my overnight bag, a Pratchett book, and my slippers from two Christmas’s ago that I have never worn. I give my name at reception and take a seat to watch a tv with no sound. The nurses are in a huddle and I hear my name mentioned.
One approaches me, this is it! I’m going to get my vassals ectomised.
“I’m sorry your appointment was cancelled, didn’t you get the letter?”
Back home to face another two weeks of itchy plums. I have now had bright red balls for so long I forget not to scratch them in polite company. Certainly gets you stared at in the Bank queue. How women do their bikini lines and walk in a straight line I will never know.
Double-check the new date that arrives. It’s on and I’m shown into a room with half a dozen other worried looking male members of the species. An orderly shows me to a cubicle. In a hushed voice he asks me if I have shaved “down there”. I nearly hit him.
I struggle with my backwards nightshirt but get it on eventually and join the other condemned men. Nobody speaks; each of us passes the time in our own way. Fingernails are minutely examined as is the ceiling and the patterns on the floor. The man directly opposite me keeps shifting in his seat giving me a view that makes me glad about the no breakfast rule.
One by one names are called and people depart to fates unknown. My name is next and I follow the orderly out and along a corridor. He asks me again about shaving and I give him a stare that would freeze lava.
Even though I had opted for a local anaesthetic I thought I would be in a proper operating room. The room I’m shown into is nothing more than a cubicle. The same as where you would get patched up after a Friday night punch up or minor accident.
I meet my surgeon. A vision in green with white gloved “jazz hands”. I know all about her. I’d looked her up on the world wide web. Born in Saudia Arabia, graduated London, practised in Wales before coming to the end of my bed today.
She is definitely not impressed. Maybe she thinks I’m a stalker and this is my extreme game plan to get close to her. She’s asks why I looked her up on the Internet? I reply that if anyone is going to attack my gentleman’s area with a scalpel I would like to get to know them a bit first. She is still giving me a funny look. I decide to shut up.
I have to admit I was scared but not terrified. I had watched a video on youtube where a guy had filmed his own vasectomy. His camerawork was steady and he even laughed a few times during the procedure. This gave me confidence and I lay back to enjoy what I could of the experience.
The first part was not bad at all. Iodine basting of the area at hand. My last chicken in the shop was ready for roasting. Next came the local anaesthetic jab.
“Just like the sensation you get at the dentist before you have a tooth out” she says.
If my dentist went anywhere near my testicles he would be a dead dentist. The jab isn’t bad and we swap small talk as we wait for the anaesthetic to take hold.
“Right, lets begin” says she. First incision.
Holy fuck what was in that local anaesthetic, apple juice?
I yell out and kick a bit when she slices into my scrotum. I think she has injected her own balls by mistake as mine certainly still have feeling. Might as well have had a stick to bite on for all modern medicine is doing for me.
She gives me a concerned glance from her masked face but carries on. She is handed a long needle with a hook on the end that looks more something for carpet manufacture than a medical instrument and proceeds to tease the tubes to my balls from the scrotum wall. The gay nurse behind me sees my cross-eyed agony and deathly pallor and grabs my flaying arms.
“Some more local?” he suggests.
Fucking yes please I think.
“Have you got a low pain threshold?” she asks.
“No I thought I had reasonable one”, I say through gritted teeth. But then I’ve never had my balls sliced open before.
She decides that more speed rather than more anaesthetic is the answer and gives my internal plumbing some almighty yanks. Holy mother, I’m going to pass out.
The nurse lets go my arms long enough to clamp an oxygen mask over my face as she starts on my other bollock with the same speed and ferocity.
The world goes a bit grey and for about a minute I go to a nice place.
I feel the nurse take off the mask and I hear him talking from the bottom of the sea.
“We were a bit worried about you for a minute” he says, “nearly done, just stitching up now”
I know, each stitch is a pinprick from hell and I suspect my balls are being held together with kilt pins.
“The next bit might sting a bit” she says.
Holy fuck, compared to what?
After what I’ve just experienced this going to sting a bit!
She sprays on an antiseptic from a large green can. Not too bad at first but after a couple of seconds I’m in agony again. It feels like my entire pubic region as been napalmed.
Oxygen mask back on and I’m wheeled away to recovery.
They say you never remember pain. That’s true I don’t remember the pain but the memory of the procedure still makes me wince.
After about an hour gently cupping my tortured gonads and a cup of tea I started feeling a lot better. My surgeon comes to see me on the ward. I try to hide under the bed sheet, as it is the traditional defence against the bogeyman.
She apologies and says she can’t understand why the local anaesthetic was so ineffectual. I mumble nonsense and continue hiding under the sheet until she goes away.
A while later a staff nurse arrives and asks what stage am I at. The bored stage I reply. She slopes off and reappears with a wheelchair. She is taking me to be reunited with my clothes. She pushes me through the waiting room where we all been sitting earlier. I few more despondent souls have gathered since I left for my date with Dr Mengele.
To inspire confidence and show solidarity with my brothers I grab my testicles and moan in pain as she wheels me past them. Already ashen faces turn white and six pairs of terrified eyes watch my not totally put on performance as I go by.
“That wasn’t funny” she says depositing me in the changing room. I change and thankfully exit out a side door. The girl at reception ask me if someone is coming to pick me up. Yes I lied, hiding my car keys. I then do a very passable John Wayne walk to the car park and attempt to drive home.
Every bump in the road made me cry. A luke warm bath made me scream and I slept on my back with my knees at “ten to two” for a fortnight.
