I had intended to use today's appointment with Dr Teacher to discuss the positron emission scanner and its possible application to my liver problem. However, when the alarm clock rang I woke up and became aware of an entirely new pain in an unexpected place. A very delicate place. In fact, not to beat about the bush, it was in the left testicle. I haven't had this sort of pain before and I realised it could be serious, but I am not one to panic. So I sipped my morning tea and considered the situation calmly. I remembered reading in a textbook of surgery that I obtained once from the public library that tumours of the testicle come in two kinds, the light and the heavy — and one or the other is malignant. I wondered which it was, and thought, the heavy one, most likely. The first thing I noticed when I stood in front of the mirror was that the left (painful one) was already hanging lower — could this be because of its greater weight? I tried to check this scientifically but Hilda unfortunately chose that moment to come in and say, ‘Norman what on earth are you doing with my kitchen scales?’ Well, I didn't want to alarm her at that stage, so I passed the incident off with a little joke. She gave me some very funny looks over the breakfast table but did not refer to it again.
展开▼
