Warning: this post contains graphic descriptions and you may wish to click away now.
We got back from A&E tonight at 10.45 after taking hubby in to be checked over as we suspected possible post-operative complications.
To re-cap: the surgery for sperm retrieval was on Friday morning. Hubby worked that night, and also Saturday night. So not resting as much as required, but it was a big job and kind of unavoidable.
There was swelling on Friday immediately from the procedure of course, but it gradually got worse until his right teste was 4 - 5 times normal size. It is now Sunday, 3 days after the op, and this morning when he woke there was additional bleeding/bruising under the skin.
Late this afternoon we were having afternoon tea and hubby said he felt ill. He was dizzy, had shooting pains in his thighs and lower torso. He felt woozy and felt uncoordinated.
I took him home and cooked him dinner while he rested and drank ice water (it's blazing hot in the middle of summer here. Seriously you can get a sunburn sitting in the shade almost!)
He was exhausted, and after dinner I read a bit online about what to check for post-op infection / complications / shock. When he mentioned how yuck he felt with what appeared to be a fever and that there was now pain in his calves as well, I decided it was best to get him checked by a doctor.
We bundled ourselves quickly into the car (forgetting even to close the back door) and headed off at 9pm to the emergency clinic. There are two of these clinics in town and both of them close at 8pm :( So off to the ER we went.
The triage nurse saw us at 9.30, and we were relieved when it turned out hubby didn't have a temperature after all. Maybe just the heat of the day or exhaustion or his body fighting to recover from the op, she suggested. She had a look and made sympathetic noises when she saw the swelling.
At 9.38 we were shown into a private room in A&E, with a nurse appearing to do basic observations and vitals at 9.42. Blood pressure was fine (much better than during the actual SSR that's for sure!) She also had a look, and described other cases of testicular swelling she witnessed, using her hands to indicate the size of a grapefruit (!)
About this time hubby did a count up on the number of people he'd had to "show his nuts to" in a single weekend, not including me. Answer: 6.
At 10.30 the nurse came and asked for a urine sample to test for the presence of blood. When it came back negative, and because hubby was feeling so much better and getting inpatient with having to wait around, we decided to leave at 11.45 and come home. We are literally within 5min walking distance of the hospital so it's not too much drama should we need to come back in a hurry.
The nurse registrar advised us to stay, saying that the burst blood vessel inside could potentially cause blocked nerves. But hubby and I were both satisfied that waiting for the doctor would just waste time as he didn't have a fever, had normal vitals, and would most likely be seeing his GP in the next day or so anyway. She signed us out ok.
What a night. I am absolutely exhausted and I feel simply horrible that hubby has had to go through this whole thing. He makes sure to tell me that the decision to go through with this procedure and the next one is his decision too, and that shit happens. He's looking lots brighter now and is happily resting up in the man cave out back. But we're both glad he got checked, just knowing the vitals are fine is a huge relief, and he did appear quite ill earlier in the evening.
Yeah, so cross fingers we see some actual recovery tomorrow!
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