Yesterday I left work early so I could travel to the hospital at my hometown for a stress test, related to my heart issues. After I waited for an hour, I was ordered by a bickering couple of doctor and nurse to get naked from my waist up, attach some complicated shit to my chest, including a mesh that compressed my torso, and walk on an incline treadmill until my lungs couldn’t take it anymore. By the end I must have been a minute away from getting woozy. As an on-and-off weightlifter who also moves computers and computer-related devices around for work, I’m not a stranger to exercise, but I don’t do cardio. I hate it quite a bit, in fact.

Anyway, my heart didn’t explode. The doctor said that my case of (jab-induced) arrhythmia isn’t particularly bad, but if my episodes don’t pass spontaneously after an hour without medicating myself, and after four hours if I take flecainide, I should go to the ER. They will probably stop me from suffering an aneurysm or a stroke.

That’s one of my health issues more or less handled, apart from the fact that I’m taking beta blockers in perpetuity for now, although I’m experiencing plenty of the side effects of long-term use (disorientation, short-term memory loss, dizziness, depression, etc.). Out of nowhere, a few days ago I experienced a different, more awkward health issue that I’ll proceed to describe in detail.

One of our network cabinets at the hospital complex where I work has switches mounted so high that you need a ladder to manipulate them. Unfortunately, no ladder would fit in the narrow space between the front of the cabinet and the wall, so we steal a walking aid from one of the departments, and haphazardly perch ourselves on it. I did that for about ten minutes as I followed some connections. A short while after I got down from there, as I was heading back to the office, my right testicle hurt bad, as in “I can barely take full steps” bad. I attempted to stop in every bathroom along the way, but they were occupied, as it usually happens in a hospital with plenty of traffic. Once I got to the bathroom, I didn’t notice anything in particular: my balls weren’t swelling nor going purple, and I wasn’t vomiting from the pain, so I likely hadn’t contracted a case of testicular torsion. I tolerated the rest of that shift while trying to get up from my chair as little as possible.

The following day, my balls no longer hurt, but to my dismay, I detected a lump inside my scrotum, seemingly attached to the inner wall, located between my right testicle and whatever that zone that connects to the abdomen is called. The presence of that solid mass, about half of the size of one of my testicles, could be a coincidence; although I fondle my genitals often, I rarely go out of my way to squeeze the space between my right testicle and the rest of my body. In any case, either this is some cyst-like growth, an inguinal hernia, or testicular cancer. I hope it isn’t cancer, but the others will likely also involve a surgery of some kind. Inguinal hernias can be caused by lifting weights and pushing too hard while shitting, both things that I do regularly (I also have irritable bowel syndrome). One time I pushed so hard that I ended up with petechiae all around my eyes (google it).

A song I’ve been listening to a lot this week, as I’m playing it to get in the mood during the freewrites of my current chapter, has the following lyric line: “Don’t you realize our bodies could fall apart any second?” And that’s how I’ve felt about my body for most of my life: my brain causes me all sorts of problems (due to autism, various mental conditions, migraines), my bodily functions went haywire due to my pituitary tumor (thankfully now treated), I feel bloated constantly and I’m about to shit myself several times myself a day thanks to IBS, my heart fails, a random growth appears inside my scrotum, etc. I only wished for peace and to be left alone, but I’m not even left in peace by my own body.

Whatever. Are you having fun? I’ve been having quite a bit of fun preparing my latest chapter that I’ll have ready in a day or two. I can always look forward to that kind of joy, at least.