Nuts!

‘How does a squirrel keep his nuts dry? By swimming on his back.’

This is one of dad’s favourite jokes and last night at midnight it popped into my head. Fortunately, it popped out again quickly. For last night was not the moment to be attempting to retell it in Zulu.

Presenting in front of me was a six year old boy with his Gogo and neighbour (who looked very awkward) to explain to me that the boy had been bitten by a dog. The location of the bite quickly became clear – the scrotum. Unfortunately, the clinic had covered the man’s dignity with tape and no gauze. My first challenge was to try to get this off without causing him more pain. I decided to apply lots of sterile water and then pulled it apart (still very painful). This revealed that both testes were hanging loose. Although I do not have male genitalia (you will be pleased to know), I felt his pain. We do not have many options (and none are good) for strong analgesia. I did my best and cleaned out the wound. I tried hard to pop both testes back in place but to no avail. As a result, I had to transfer him to our referral hospital for specialist care.

NB. This somewhat emergency situation was not taken seriously by our ambulance crew. I asked them to pick the boy up at Mosvold at 4am so that he could be on the surgeon’s table by 8.00 am (it is a 3 hr drive to our referral hospital). They reassured me this would be done. It was not. None of the EMRS drivers could be convinced to disturb their sleep. On discovering this I gave our Ops Manager a full and frank opinion of our emergency service team. The boy finally left our outpatient department at 7.30am this morning.