This is not my proudest moment
Around about two nights ago, me and my lady decided there were many,
many things that needed celebrating. Abe's new job, her cousins
visiting her, and my continued holding of the title "Guitar Hero God"
(Ok, so not that many but when you're young and beautiful do you
really need such profundity?).
There were many drinks involved, which is, in a roundabout way,
where this tale of woe starts. We made our way back home, parting ways
with the rest of our party and taking the metro, where we were mostly
alone and taking true advantage of this. We left the
subway and stumbled through the streets to our apartment where we
started where we left off and eventually fell into that blissful torpor
of drunken sleep.
The next day is where the problem started. Sex, Watson, and lots of
it. Not entirely unheard of, right? Two young people, a sunday
morning, not a care in the world, horrific hangovers, and far too many
hormones than can feasibly be good for you. To make a potentially long
story short: Sex can be bad for your health and I will endeavour to
explain how, so that those reading may be warned, or at the very least
get off on the schadenfreude of it all.
Theoretically, if the woman is on top and she is, um,
slightly aggressive then there is generally a lot of
movement, and almost certainly a lot of momentum. This is ordinarily
fine, as the penis is usually somewhere safe where it can be
protected from the harsh reality of what is actually happening and just
strap itself in for the ride. You ocassionally get curious penises,
however, that decide it's in their best interest to pop their head out
to see what's going on. These are the ones you must watch out for, and
if you have one be sure to chastise it before such a malady befalls
you. Needless to say I didn't take such precautions and paid the
ultimate price. My penis popped out to say "Hello!"
where it was greeted quite harshly by my lovers pelvis who wasn'tÂ
quite as friendly as it would initially seem. I've been told that
there's a popping sound that is supposedly heard, but I can't recollect
if this is true as the moment was very much upon us. What I do remember
is a very sudden pain the likes of which I have never experienced and
flaccidity on a scale that I had never encountered before.
She was blissfully ignorant of my predicament and must have decided
that in my suddenly stunned state I was ready to go again. She
took matters into her own hand and attempted to reawaken the
beast. It failed and very nearly brought tears to my eyes. I made the
suggestion that maybe she should take a shower and freshen herself up a
little, as I needed to check on something. She hesitantly accepted and
I did what any red-blooded male would probably do when faced
with a problem: Consult the internet!
My first google search of "pain in penis" revealed a lot of
results, most of which while fascinating in their own right wasn't
really what I was looking for. I finally stumbled across the culprit, I
believed, and my stomach turned (type "Broken Penis" into the image
search of your choice for pictures that will make you cringe).
Wikipedia will gladly tell you that:
"A penile fracture is an injury caused by the rupture of the tunica albuginea, which envelopes the corpus cavernosum penis. It is an uncommon injury, most often caused by a blunt trauma to an erect penis."
Which is a very good if slightly sterile summary of the injury. A penile fracture is actually a very painful injury that causes fibrous tissue to hemorrhage internally
thanks to the breaking of a very thin wall designed to prevent such
occurances.
Neither explanation was really much comfort to me as I took the most
awkward taxi ride in my life, with a very unnaturally concerned taxi
driver who kept making a point to ask if I was Ok ("He's fine. His
water broke 5 minutes ago"). Thankfully ER was very much empty and I
was able to be seen to quite quickly. I was almost certainly an oddity,
to the point where they were slightly incredulous of my tale and needed
many "second opinions" (which I've found is probably code for "Come and
look at this guy who's hung like Clifford the Big Red Dog"). I
finally got to see a Urologist who took the time to explain to me what
had actually happened in great detail. A lot of this flew over my head
but my girlfriend, who is a med student, took the time to explain it in
terms that would probably be easier to understand:
"So imagine you have a sausage with two casings, and you
bend it just enough that the internal casing breaks
but the outer one stays intact. This releases a lot of
grease that doesn't have much options as to where it can go."
Did I happen to mention she found this very amusing?
I was also told that I was very wise, lucky and fortunate to come
when I did as a large amount of cases can go unreported and this can
lead to an incredibly high complication rate. I would have to undergo
surgery as soon as possible. They took my medical history and all
relevant information and after going through the technicalities they
put me under and did the surgery.
I awoke several hours later with an incredible amount of throbbing
pain in my groin. My girlfriend was there to lovingly tell me that it was Ok, they didn't remove anything. The doctor reappeared sometime later and told me that the operation was a
success. They removed the clotting, repaired the damage that was
done and after briefing me on the proper precautions I should be fit to
leave whenever I feel up to the task.
The first was no sexual activity for at least a month, and it
was at a physicians discretion when I would be allowed to resume. This
means regular checkups that the healing process is going smoothly and
that there's no post-surgery complications. I could already see the
problem here. I'm reasonably certain I could refrain from such
activity. I'm also reasonably certain that foul temptress
of mine would be doing everything with her rather limited options to
make this a true test of endurance. The briefest hint of a smirk gave away her intentions.
Second was an issue of hygiene. When washing (an act that in and of
itself will be a long time coming. I look like the mummy from the
waist down), I should be incredibly careful when washing my genitals,
as not only will it be very sore but there is also risk of further
injury.
I could agree that yes, this wasn't what I wanted, and took note.
The third was regards to that wonderful pastime, urination. I was
given one of those things which I can only really describe as a piss
bottle (when I spent quite some time in hospital as a child these were
made of some sort of cardboard. I got the much more chic, infinitely more sexy plastic
model.) Things are still very much messed up down there. There's
swelling in pretty much every part of my being and this will obviously
make urination difficult. I can use this to urinate in then empty it
into the toilet to make things far easier for myself as I'm liable to
have very little flow control, or at least less than normal
The last was regarding pain management. I was given quite heavy duty
painkillers and told to take them on a regular basis. The
swelling will go down eventually but the discomfort would almost
certainly last longer.
Yes, it probably would.
So I discharged with much soreness (that is, left the hospital), and
made a slightly less frantic but no less uncomfortable taxi journey
back home. Every jostle resulted in pain, every sharp turn the promise
of agony.
Arriving back at the apartment I could finally see the inherant
disadvantages of living on the second floor with absolutely no
elevator. Making what I feel is a herculean effort to climb the stairs
I finally managed it and attempted to get to sleep. This was an utter
failure. Absolutely every single position resulted in at least 2 areas
being incredibly painful and even with a pillow propping my legs open
it was not to be. So this has left me, for the past several hours,
complaining, writing this, and thinking of plausible ways to explain my
absence from work.
I'm open to suggestions.