Battling Through the Pain

It's been a couple of days since I noticed this hernia-like pain on my left side. Wearing the athletic supporter and taking the ibuprofen seemed to help. Yesterday, I went to bed feeling ship-shape. However this morning, I noticed the return of that sensation on my left side again. I just pray and hope this sensation will go away on in the next few days.

In the meantime, I guess it's a return to the athletic supporter. There have been times when I've worn the athletic supporter for weeks at a time. So this won't be anything new for me. I just wish I were past this stage of needing to resort to this coping mechanism. Perhaps, I'll never get past this stage.

While sitting here this morning, I've also noticed the familiar twinge in my left inguinal area. It feels like something is folding on itself inside my inguinal area. I've often wondered if this pain and sensations I have, aren't some how related to the mesh inside me from my inguinal hernia surgery way back when I was in my early twenties. I'm not sure about the lifespan of a hernia repair.

My title is battling through the pain. It really does feel like a battle sometimes - a real war. Some days I lose and other days I win. The back and forth is very frustrating. People who suffer from chronic pain, probably struggle with this most of all.

It should just make me glad for the good days. I really am thankful for the good days. It just gets a little frustrating having to get off that high plateau and tumble back into the war zone.

On an unrelated matter, I've been having sharp chest pains too. I'm not sure, but it feels like ribcage pain. Sometimes, it worsens when I breathe in deep or push around on my ribs and sternum. Weird. Anyway, just thought I would throw that one in. I hope it's not real chest (cardiac) pain. Challenging nevertheless, especially when I'm hurting down under.

Back to the Athletic Supporter

It seems like a long time since I've felt like I needed to wear my athletic supporter. I usually wear it when I don't know what else to do. That's where I find myself this morning. I have noticed something a little bit more significant on my left side, beginning yesterday. It is kind of a mix of racking pain, hernia "full" feeling in my left testicle and nerve pain in my inguinal area.

It sounds like the trifecta of PVPS. After breakfast this morning, I took some ibuprofen, as that helps with the racking pain. Then I took a shower. I palpated my boys during the shower and felt this tendon-like structure running vertical across the top of my left testicle. When I touched it, it hurt.

I remember taking a bath last year and noticing this same type of "thing" running across my testicle. Back then, it felt like I was having a hernia inside my testicle; as if my innards were falling into my scrotum on the left side.

That pain eventually passed, but it took about 3 days of ibuprofen, rest and athletic support. I pray this won't be with me for 3 days this time, if it is indeed the same thing - which I'm not sure it is.

As an FYI, I also have noticed right inguinal pain that radiates down my right thigh. But this has been intermittent at best and not long lasting.

Today, I will try to stay off my butt and keep wearing the athletic supporter. I will also keep the ibuprofen handy, just in case.

I Hate Pain

I read a story by Tony Dungy called Quiet Strength. In there he talks about how he adopted a child who was born with the inability to feel pain. A gene was missing, who would have known. They wondered if something was wrong when they noticed the kid wouldn't cry after getting shots and eye drops.

I told my wife about this and she immediately thought how great it would be if I couldn't feel pain. I thought that was a great idea, but didn't think much more about it. Mainly because I've been relatively pain free for a couple weeks/months.

Well, today I woke up in pain. It feels like that racking pain I've had before on my left side. But I also had nerve like pain on my left side too. That's new. It's so frustrating and so I went for a little walk and talked to the Lord about it.

As usual, he helped me put everything in perspective. I tend to get myself so wrapped up in the symptoms or the pain or whatever it is, that I lose perspective. I suddenly become so engrossed, nothing else matters. Talking to the Lord is a great way to remind myself we should praise him, regardless of whether things are going well or bad.

I have a bad habit of only thanking him for good stuff and not also appreciating what comes from the bad stuff, like patience, mercy, grace, understanding, and peace. When times are tough, I learn the most.

But I do hate pain. I don't like having it, no matter what I might learn. But it could be worse. I might have been born with a gene that keeps me from feeling pain. Then I'd probably really hurt myself, although I wouldn't know it.

Such are the challenges of this fickle life. So thank you God for giving me the pain. Thank you for letting yourself be glorified in it. Help me to grow from this.

Treating the Pain Like Any Other Pain

Every once in a while, I think of the pain I have. Well, actually I think about it all the time, but what I mean to say is, I try to think about the pain like any other pain. For instance, what if I had chronic nerve pain in my arm or calf. Would I be as annoyed by it? Would it dominate the landscape of my life? Why can't I just think of it like it's an old sport injury from college?

I think the problem is because a sports injury is an acceptable part of the game. There's a chance you might end up with a twisted knee or high ankle sprain or worse. I never knew the world of PVPS even existed. The concept of chronic pain or inflammation was never explained to me when I made the decision to have the snip or the reversal. So it's hard to keep in the same frame of mind. But I try nonetheless.

What kills me about the nerve pain is that I got it after my reversal. So in a way, I feel like I made a bad decision on top of an already bad decision. Like throwing good money after bad. This is turn creates a certain degree of beating oneself up. Not the best place to be mentally considering all the other garbage going on.

Today, I find myself recovering from a Saturday hike in the woods. Like an idiot, I tried to move a small tree that was obstructing the path of our vehicle. My wife and kids helped me, but I gave it a good strain. (Another bad decision). Anyway, I didn't feel any pain then, but I did feel a little pull in my groin yesterday evening when we arrived home.

This morning, I'm back to wearing the athletic supporter. I keep getting breath-taking pains whenever my left testicle moves forward and up within my scrotum. I have taken it easy today - to say the least. I'll probably take an ibuprofen tonight and then reboot tomorrow with a gentle walk around the neighborhood.

I've also had right sided inguinal pains, but nothing to write home about. So it's been two relatively good weeks before I screwed it all up yesterday. That's one of the tough things, when you're not having pain, you think you can do all the stuff you used to be able to do. It's a subtle trap that catches you off guard, when you're not paying attention. Then "whammo" you do something stupid like try to move a log off the road.

But, in trying to keep a little perspective, like I talked about last time, I will read a little more in my Bible and pray a little more to God. I just found out that a lady was praying specifically for me all week long last week. Not surprisingly, I had one of my best weeks in a long, long time. Time to get back on my knees and go to the Lord for some more help.

Fear

Fear is the great equalizer. Last week, I had 4, count them, 1-2-3-4, wonderful days. Then Saturday evening was only a little painful. Then Sunday was just slightly a bit more painful, but really nothing compared to a couple weeks ago. Then Monday totally stunk it up. My left testicle, above the teste, became hard and I thought I was going to have epididymitis again. I began to have a million thoughts run through my head - did the reversal fail after 13 months, would I have a painful week and need to go see a doctor, etc. Basically, fear set in.

Fear is the thing that I struggle with the most. The same questions I just asked, constantly swirl around in my head. Add to this the fact that I'm exhausted from coping with the pain, dealing with the pain, having to face the pain, pain, pain, pain....ugh! My frustration level has been quite high lately. I keep asking God to help me count it as joy, but that is easier to say than to do. Pain sucks. Fear sucks. Vasectomies suck.

I took some ibuprofen yesterday and laid down in bed. I also wore a jock strap, hoping that might keep the boys in place. I prayed and I read the Bible. First Peter is what I read. It helped a lot. My prayer was full of sobbing and asking for help to get through this latest pain. I texted my sister and asked her to pray.

When I got up from bed about 2 hours later, the hard thing in my testicle was gone. I had residual pain, but the ibuprofen was helping me with that. Today, I woke up and still felt sore. The pain was into my right thigh. I took some tylenol at lunch and now I feel pretty decent.

I hate that I'm becoming more dependent on the tylenol/ibuprofen. I wish I could go a month without using them. I wish I could get up and work out without having to worry about the painful consequences. I wish for a lot of things, but I'm left in the state I'm in.

So fear is what I'm dealing with now. Prayer seems to help, reading the Bible seems to help, sitting around with nothing else to think about - doesn't help. You see, fear gets trapped in the mind and tells you that life stinks. As I was reminded yesterday, life doesn't stink, just the post vasectomy pain thing-a-ma-jig stinks. Count your blessings when pain hits is what my sister told me to do. Don't let fear get a stranglehold on your thinking, because it can dominate.

Again, easier to say than to put into action. But I'm trying. God seems to be the only thing that can help me here. Not a bad bailout plan I guess. I just keep praying for things to get better. Please Lord, make them get better. Amen.

Maybe I'm in a Bad Cycle

Well, I've been thinking the cold was responsible for my left sided racking pain. But today was a fairly warm day and my left side has felt racked almost all day. So, maybe this is just a bad cycle I'm in. Or maybe I've pushed it to much on the computer and have sat for too long. Or it could be because I carried two heavy boxes up the stairs yesterday.

But whatever it is, I'm hurting fairly good today and I'm none too happy about it. Add to this, my mentor back in Dallas is having some kind of knee pain, on top of his chronic back problems. I feel bad for him and hope he's able to get some relief quickly.

I hope to have some relief soon too. I did take some tylenol today, but I've noticed it doesn't help with this left sided racking pain. I believe only ibuprofen helps so I'll probably take some after dinner tonight. In the meantime, I've decided to join a gym so I can get on the treadmill for some exercise. I think, walking will help me also - but it's been too cold to walk outside lately.

My right side doesn't hurt, so that's a good thing. In fact, there have been no symptoms on my right side at all, since my left has been acting up. Interestingly, it seems to work that way. I only have pain on one side at a time, never on both at the same time - thank God.

Well, time to get out of this computer chair, so until next time.

It Happened Again in the Cold

I was out in the cold again. And again, my left side started having that racking sensation again. The pain stayed with me until I got the boys warmed up by going inside. So, I think I'll start wearing thermal pants when I go outside. I also think I'm going to get a gym membership somewhere so I can walk on the treadmill and get more reliable exercise/walking.

This cold damp rain of the pacific NW is great for keeping everything green, but it also keeps me from getting outdoors to walk like I should. I suppose I could invest in some warmer clothes or rain gear, but I think I'll just bone up and pay the $32 per month for a membership somewhere. This is a gym close by the house that I could go to.

Walking still seems like an important cog in my coping wheel. Since I've stopped walking (with the colder weather), my legs are pretty tight. My back even hurts more. So I guess my body is telling me something.

So if you wonder if temperature makes a difference in your testicular pain, I think the answer is yes. The colder, the more snug they're up in you and so the more pressure is put on scar tissue, etc. Then those get pushed against nerves and before you know it, you're having pain.

At least, that's my latest theory. Maybe that's another reason why hot baths provide such relief. It allows the boys to hang a little more freely.

Why You Should Not Have a Vasectomy

My left testicle is still reminding me that it's there. Yesterday, I picked up a pumpkin to put it in the mini-van. Three minutes later, I had that vice grip feeling on the left side. I can't believe that by picking up a 15 pound pumpkin, my boys would hurt. But that's the nature of vasectomy pain syndrome. It doesn't seem to take much to aggravate them.

My wife and I were intimate again last Saturday night. I didn't have any pain or discomfort while we were together, thank the Lord. I've heard other people say they have extreme pain with ejaculation. I think I'd turn into a monk if that were the case. My right side still has some referred pain, into my right abdomen, over by my side. I'm also having that spasm feeling behind my right testicle. I sometimes call it a burning or paper cut sensation. That seems to show up after ejaculations. Like the vas deference is refilling with sperm and it doesn't like it. Hard to explain, but it's there none-the-less.

It seems like ejaculations make my right side have this referred pain more often too. At least that's the case this time around. Interestingly, my left side has a horizontal line impression in it. It's weird. A perfectly straight line, completely horizontal. I'll have to ask the guys on the forum about that. You know, I saw the line before, but hadn't noticed how perfectly horizontal it was, nor how pronounced it was. I just thought it was a weird looking wrinkle in my scrotum.

So I guess that's it for today. I'm now 10 months and 1 week post op from my reversal and if I measure my outcome in terms of months, I'd say I am getting better with each month. But I also have more coping mechanisms than before this journey started. I just keep praying that God will continue to be with me on this journey and that I'll have a great outcome. I also keep praying that God will use my situation to help men make the decision to NOT have a vasectomy. There really is a lot of wisdom that many doctors have, which is God designed us to be a certain way and when we start having surgies to mess with that design, we're asking for trouble.

Left Side is Barking

I woke up this morning and my left testicle was not very happy. It had his throbbing, spiking pain that lasted all morning. I would put the pain at at 3 or 4, but it only lasted for about 2 seconds before the throbbing took it away. Then a few seconds later it would happen again. Very weird. Then it just stopped.

As my wife said last night, who knows why I have pain. Who knows what really sets it off and who knows why it stops suddenly. You just have to learn how to roll with the punches sort of speak. I've usually had no trouble doing that in other areas of my life, but when the punch is in your scrotum, it kind of is hard to ignore.

After lunch, I haven't had any pain. Again, who knows why? But I won't look that gift horse in the mouth. To sum up, I'm still taking a multi vitamin. I'm still praying. I'm still using my coping mechanisms. I'm still taking a hot bath.

That's about it.