The Empirical Manifesto

A couple of years ago I was here at work and becoming increasingly uncomfortable, as my nuts were getting more tender by the moment. I got home and my wife wanted us to go grocery shopping, and kept yelling at me to keep up. I was having difficulty walking. "What is wrong with you?" she kept asking. I didn't know how to answer. We made it home and after awhile I got the kids down in bed and she was calling me from the other room. "Coming!" I hollered and made my way toward her. Frustrated with my lack of progress, she starts toward my location and finds me crawling to her. Unwilling to take any more of my apparent nonsense, she screams, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

Unable to further dissuade her, I come clean. A $100 trip to the emergency room having my balls sonogrammed coupled with a follow-up visit to my doctor the next morning (where she reads my file, looks at me and says, Let's see 'em all the while motioning with her hands for me to expedite the unveiling). Her diagnosis? Acute epididymitis. Translation: "You had a little infection, but now its gone."

Which is why I usually eschew the emergency rooms these days. Too little return on the investment.

After my inexplicable fever last week however - which came with no other symptoms, I noticed something was wrong. I couldn't tell you how, exactly, but I thought I'd pulled a back muscle laying prostrate those sixty hours. Until my nuts started aching. To the point it would sometimes take my breath away. I suffered all week waiting for this ballet of pain to work itself out or manifest itself in some way I would be able to identify it. I finally made an appointment to see my doctor yesterday. Things played out fairly quickly at that point.

My tests came back negative for signs of kidney stones or a hernia, so the doctor pulled two vials of blood to be sent off for tests. He asked me not to eat breakfast, and called me personally the next morning to tell me he wanted me to get a CAT SCAN.



I was at the hospital by 1000. And staring at a tall glass of berry-cold liquid. The nurse was speaking to me as if I were a geriatric, "If you can finish this drink in the next half hour, we can scan you at 1130."

"This glass?" I say, pointing to the drink on the other side of the counter.

"Yes. If you can finish it in the next half hour, we can scan you at 1130," she repeats.

I reach for the glass, and down it while standing at the counter. It tasted like complete ass. Berry-flavored ass. But it was cold. Made it easier to go down. When I set it down I licked my lips. Everyone in the back office is staring at me. "We've...we've never seen anyone drink it that fast."

"I was thirsty."

...

By 1400, my doctor calls me again: Kidney Stone.

I have an appointment Monday with the urologist.