I Could Have Been a Half Eunuch

When I was six, my urologist, Dr. Bartholomew, informed me that I had an undescended testicle and he would have to perform surgery on me.

This was shocking because I didn’t even know what a testicle was…

Snip, snip, push, push, stitch, stitch

Once I recovered and went back to Dr. Bartholomew for a post-operative examination, he had a very serious discussion with me.

He told me that three things could happen to me when I get older:
1) I could have a hernia
2) Develop testicular cancer
3) My newly descended testicle will not take and never grow

At this point, I reminded the doctor that I was only six. I was concentrating more on what flavor of Jolly Rancher lollipop to choose from the candy jar at the end of the visit rather than think about the variations of my imminent doom.

My biggest fear was that I would die before Empire Strikes Back would be released.

He said I didn’t have to be afraid of dying…just yet.

However, he was very concerned about my body rejecting the new ball and I become a tenor-soprano half-eunuch. He handed me a “magazine”, which I discovered to be a synthetic testicle replacement (“falsies”) catalog. Sizes ranged from “petite” to “XL”. As a born and raised, materialistic, young American, my eyes obviously went to the “XL”. Super Size Me!

Dr. Bartholomew said it was too big and I wouldn’t look proportional. I didn’t care; I wanted the biggest one they had.

I was really lucky because my body accepted the hibernating, ellipsoidal orb of life. This was really fortunate, because the government banned prosthetic silicone testicles in humans. Forcing thousands of lopsided men to find refuge with black-market veterinarians, who performed illegal surgeries using dog “falsies” called Neuticals® .

So compared to option #2 or #3, I never thought I would be so happy to hear I have a hernia.

I am a blessed…kind of