Soft Squidgy Bits

Some time has elapsed between the events that I am about to describe and this moment in time, so I can talk about them more comfortably. 

I might be a gob-on-a-stick here, but in truth I am a very private man who is incredibly private about private things, so this post will pain me. I have a clear purpose in writing it, however. 

Last new year, I did the whole 'resolution' thing. Eat less, drink less, pray more, take more time, enable more free time for Mrs Acular, devote more time to the Twins Aculae, and so on .... My other resolution was self-examination of an intimate nature, for health reasons.

Like a responsible adult male, I examined my testicles, but in a rather half-hearted sort of way - the way you look behind the sofa cushions hoping to find a tenner when you know you won't. Well, on my first flight, I discovered a lump on on my crown-jewels.

A funny set of things then happened, all automatically, all in quick succession. I didn't panic but I consigned the moment to my permanent memory. I recognised that this lump had the potential to be serious and maybe even life threatening. I felt a grief that there was the faintest chance that I might not see my babies grow into the beautiful women I expect them to. In that moment, I was again reassured I had married the right woman, was doing the work I was born to do, but that I really did need to sort out my will. I felt sad for me. I like being me, and I didn't want to stop being me. Being me has its ups and downs but it is fairly jolly in the end. I wondered how dying would feel and whether I would be any good at it. I knew in a moment that I must spare my wife the duty of compiling my funeral and that I must write my own. I was clear that the family would cope and that we have planned properly for such an eventuality, so that was ok! I was scared though. I was a little boy in those split seconds and I wanted my mum.  I was mortal and one way or the other, I would die.

Later tests revealed that it was a cyst, thank God. Oddly, I discovered at the same time that one of my kidneys is rather mashed up, but I didn't care really - not when I had my trews about my ankles and a kid of a sonographer playing with my knackers, things were already odd enough thanks. Anyway, the cyst remains and here I am a few months later aching with embarrassment that I am talking about my balls. 

The reason I have written this is that I must demand that all men reading this examine themselves next opportunity. Part of my own emotion at the time was that I feared that I had maybe missed the lump for months and that it might become terribly bad by then - the what-ifs. Gentlemen, you have my permission to go and fiddle with your rocks - go do it, and do it quickly - then again in a month and then again.