Will’s World: Exam time is an educational experience
© Lee Boswell Photography I’ve dealt with a considerable amount of ball ache lately.
Not the usual variety, like farm assurance inspections or whole-herd TB tests, or even a burst hydraulic pipe at 5.05 on a Friday afternoon, but actual bona fide, deeply uncomfortable, take-your-breath-away-if-you-move-too-suddenly ball ache.
See also: Farm Doctor: Let’s talk about prostate and testicular cancer
About the author
If you’re a sickeningly young man reading this, go ahead, laugh it up.
Wait until middle age hits you like a sledgehammer to the face (or in this case, the balls), and parts of you that you’ve taken for granted for all these years randomly start to hurt or malfunction.
Then you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
At first, I assumed I was just having a Pavlovian response to the horror that is the daily news in these dangerous and divided times.
But when it didn’t go away after a fortnight, and after much nagging from the present Mrs Evans, I reluctantly made a call to the local GP.
Grin and bare it
A few days later, following the kind of embarrassingly awkward examination that you start getting used to when you reach the age of 40, they added me to the waiting list for an appointment at the radiology department for an ultrasound.
Naturally, I expected it would take months to come through. But much to my surprise, the following week I received a phone call from the hospital to say they’d had a cancellation and could I come in the next morning.
Sitting in the waiting room, I was thinking about the last time I’d been there, when I got to happily glimpse the youngest of my numerous daughters in the womb at 20 weeks, and pondering how fast the years go by, when, right on time, they called my name and snapped me out of my reverie.
Two minutes later I once again found myself lying on a bed, trousers and undies around my knees, making small talk with strangers while they thoroughly examined my crown jewels.
The two women looking after me were very lovely and professional. After noting that I was a farmer, they began to ask me questions about the farm and what I did – in between staring intently at the screen and consulting each other.
“We wanted to see you quickly because you’re a farmer,” one said cheerfully. “Oh yes,” the other chipped in. “We always know that if farmers come into hospital, then it must be very serious.”
Naturally, this only added to my not inconsiderable worry.
Out on a limb
They then began to swap anecdotes about farmers – stories that have obviously taken on a mythical status among NHS staff, added to and embellished over the years during each retelling.
“I saw a farmer once that had his leg broken in 10 places by a bull, and he’d carried on working on it for a month before he came in,” one stated.
“That’s nothing. I heard about one who had three fingers chopped off, but was too busy to stop so he put them in the freezer and came in with them in a bag a few days later,” the other replied with ghoulish glee.
Lying there listening, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride at the superhero status being conferred on our community.
It also left me feeling slightly unsettled, as the pressure on farmers to get the job done at all costs, even to our physical detriment, seems desperately wrong.
Anyway, turns out there’s nothing majorly wrong with me, thankfully, so you’ll just have to keep putting up with me doing what I do best – talking balls.