Unsung Love Song E-Book

Laurence Dillon

• Herausgeber: Zuleika
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 291

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

'a searing, touching little book'
THE DAILY MAIL

This book is unlike anything you've ever read before....

Twenty-five years ago, Laurence Dillon received an unpleasant surprise: he was diagnosed with malignancy and had his testicles removed.

Life wasn't quite the same after.

Unsung Love Song is his quest to understand the anguish of the emasculated man: a compilation of the fractured tales of lives lived and unlived by men in a similar situation.

Wistful memoir meets emotional travelogue: an urban psychogeography: a field trip without a map, that wanders through rarely visited neighbourhoods of eroticism, masculine identity, and darker aspects of the soul.

A chaotic scrapbook containing a multitude of forgotten cuttings and seemingly banal souvenirs, carefully collected from many sources over the course of a life. A unique sort of 'coming-out'. Unsung Love Song is a collection of curious exhibits in a secret gallery. Its reflections, revelations and remembrances have been laid out with great care and dignity for just one visitor - You.

Leseprobe

unsung love song

unsung love song

—

laurence dillon

First published 2020

by Zuleika Books & Publishing

Thomas House, 84 Eccleston Square London, SW1V 1PX

Copyright © 2020 Laurence Dillon

The right of Laurence Dillon to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-8380324-0-1

Designed by Euan Monaghan

WARNING

contains material that may be considered disturbing and offensive

Prologue

I was sick the day it all began. I vomited several times – maybe it was coincidence, or perhaps my body was telling me that something was wrong. I went into work as normal and started my night shift at the local hospital, as a radiographer – someone has to do it.

The hospital was a self-contained world with its unique rhythms and rituals, its own peculiar protocols. I belonged. I liked my job and enjoyed feeling that I was part of something bigger than me. I was proud to be involved with an important and worthwhile endeavour. I “believed” in the NHS.

It was the week before Christmas and the evening was busy with a constant stream of patients arriving, but it slowed down after midnight. The X-ray department could be a hectic place during the day, but in the small hours it often became quiet and still: the gentle hum of equipment could be heard now that the general day-time commotion wasn’t drowning it out.

I was the only member of staff on duty in X-ray that night. There was a bell that was rung every time a patient was sent for X-ray from Accident & Emergency. It hadn’t sounded for a while. I also carried a bleeper for any urgent in-patient X-rays, but that was silent as well. In the lull, I made myself a cup of tea and sat in the staff room on my own, glad that it was peaceful now.

Later, I went to the toilet. Sitting on the seat, I pulled gently at the toilet-roll on the wall. I absentmindedly doubled up two squares together and reached down between my legs. What? That’s really odd! One of my balls was enormous, the right one. A stream of questions crowded urgently into my consciousness, my mind frantically trying to answer them. What’s going on? I have no idea. How did this happen? I don’t know. Was this new? Yes. Finally, a question I could answer. Yes, it was new – I hadn’t noticed it before; it seemed to me that it must have happened suddenly. I cupped them both in my hand. Yes, the right one was definitely twice the size of the left one. There was no discomfort; in fact, it felt quite numb.

I made an effort to be rational and methodically considered the possibilities, reminding myself that I shouldn’t jump to conclusions about testicular cancer. “It’s not the likeliest cause,” I told myself, whilst also thinking– “please don’t let it be that!”

It was most probably an infection, I reasoned, whilst pondering the matter back in the staff room. The bell rang, indicating a patient, and I put the matter out of my mind whilst I concentrated on my professional role. Once the patient had been returned to the A&E department, I visited the toilet again for another look. Yes, it was still the same. No, it hadn’t shrunk back to its customary size. I had hoped that it might have been some sort of late-night hallucination, but it wasn’t. The ball was hard and swollen; I could flick it with my finger and not feel anything much. I did it four or five times. Still nothing. Something was definitely not right here.

I thought for a moment and had an idea. Making myself presentable, I walked along the empty corridor to the porter’s room. There were two of them there, sitting with their feet resting upon a scuffed tabletop, a radio playing in the background. I asked one of them if he would let me into the Urology department (it was closed at night), saying I needed to get something that I’d left there. He nodded and got up, walking with me to the nearby department and unlocked the door, waiting outside as I nipped in to achieve my secret objective. I pressed a switch near the door and the strip-lighting flickered above me. Quickly, I walked towards the display racks with all the free leaflets – the leaflets that explain different diagnoses, answer questions, outline symptoms, red flags and alarm bells. Within a minute I had accomplished my mission, tucking the leaflets into my pockets discreetly. I switched the lights off, thanked the porter, told myself that the deception had been in a good cause.

Once back in my own department I carefully read the information leaflets – they described testicular hydroceles, torsions…and cancer. I went through them over and over. There were a few things that could cause a swollen testicle; that was reassuring.

When the day staff came on in the morning and my shift was over, I acted as normal, and went home as usual. This time though, I phoned my local health centre and made an appointment to see a GP before falling into bed.

Two days later I saw a locum doctor who prescribed a course of antibiotics, then muttered something about having the testicle removed if they didn’t have any effect. That sort of remark might have freaked out many guys, but I had read the leaflets and felt sure it was going to be alright. Anyway, I wasn’t the sort of chap who let self-indulgent feelings get the better of him, was I? No, not me. Little did I know that a tiny little black-hole, smaller than a pinhead, was being born in a galaxy far away – deep inside me.

I was confident that the matter would soon be concluded and quickly forgotten about. I mentioned my big ball to a couple of friends who were nurses, and they reckoned it was very likely a hydrocele – a collection of fluid. But a week later, it was still enormous, which wasn’t encouraging. That indicated that the antibiotics hadn’t worked – and that it therefore probably wasn’t an infection.

As December approached its end, my swollen ball was still the same size. I enjoyed the customary Christmas celebrations all the same, the only drawback being that I was going to be working New Year’s Eve – a particularly demanding shift. New Year’s Eve in A&E is always a slightly crazy experience.

Once I’d finished the course of antibiotics, I went back to see my GP. He asked me a few questions – did I feel any pain? No, I didn’t. Had the testicle altered over the last week? No, it hadn’t. After hearing my answers, and doing a brief examination, he sent me for further investigation at the local hospital – the same one I worked in. I had to get someone to cover my shift. Later that day, instead of being a member of staff, I sat on a bed in a ward as a patient, listening to a junior doctor explaining to me that I may have a sexually transmitted disease (STD) such as chlamydia or gonorrhoea – both of which were associated with swollen testicles. An ultrasound scan was requested, and I was sent home. An STD sounded like quite a desirable diagnosis to me, actually; certainly, when compared with cancer.

A few days afterwards I lay on a couch in a little room in the radiology department. I was given a piece of blue tissue-paper to hold my penis up against my body, so that it wouldn’t get in the way. The transducer probe was pressed firmly against my testicles as the consultant radiologist looked at the screen and moved the probe to get the best pictures. It was strange to be a patient in my own department, and here I was having my balls prodded by a chap I worked with.

He didn’t say anything as he did the scan, and I knew better than to ask any questions – he’d have to review the images before making his report. I wasn’t going to be one of those staff-members who are an awkward patient; I was just going to let people get on with their jobs. I’d find out soon enough. And I did – he broke it to me right there and then, as soon as I’d wiped the gel off my balls with the piece of blue tissue paper and pulled my underpants and trousers up.

It was malignancy – cancer. He said that he would report the images urgently and arrange for the surgeon to see me. I thanked him, and vaguely sensed a slight tremor emanate from the undiscovered black hole inside me. Apart from that, I didn’t feel much. ‘Phlegmatic’ could have been my middle name. Half an hour later I was telling my manager that I might be taking a little time off work, as it looked like I might have a touch of cancer. You know, like having a bit of a cold or something. He didn’t say much, but I was officially put on sick leave.

The consultant surgeon saw me for the first time later that day in a room behind a wide wooden door with a big frosted window. He sat behind a desk, with some hospital notes in front of him. It was an old desk, well-made, but the varnish had peeled off over the years. One of his team was there too, whilst a Macmillan nurse stood poised at the back, ready to step forward if things got a bit emotional. Her head was angled slightly; her face bore an expression of empathy which contrasted with the detached manner of the doctor. Probably some people don’t react too well to hearing bad news. Well, I was going to be just fine actually. I felt that distant stirring within me again but refused to pay it any attention.

The consultant spoke quickly. I took in the information calmly. He informed me that I had been diagnosed with a type of malignancy called teratoma. I had just been told I had cancer, but I might just as well have been told that I had dandruff. There was no outward reaction from me – the doctor delivered the news matter-of-factly and I accepted it politely. I felt a sinking feeling in my abdomen but obeyed the mantra that echoed in my head – no matter what happens, act with dignity. Things were turning out exactly as I had hoped they wouldn’t, but I had drawn up an action plan that I intended to follow. Dignity, I thought to myself. There are plenty of people worse off than you, just you remember that! My personal black hole got a little bit bigger again, and I didn’t notice it at all.

But if one piece of bad news wasn’t enough, there was an unexpected complication – the ultrasound scan had indicated a probable teratoma in my left testicle too. The surgeon told me that he thought it best to deal with one issue at a time and decided to operate on my swollen testicle first. I was booked in for an orchidectomy – removal of testicle. He told me what would happen in the operation: that he would make an incision in my lower abdomen and pull the testicle up along the inguinal canal and out from the incision. My spermatic cord would be clamped, then snipped, and it’s done.

Finally, he asked me if I’d like a prosthetic testicle inserted after the diseased one had been removed, I shrugged my shoulders and said yes. I visited my department later to look at one of the medical textbooks kept on a shelf there and found out more about teratoma: how it is a germ cell tumour that arises in cells which produce eggs or sperm. Women can get teratoma too, it affects their ovaries.

I travelled home on the bus, blankly looking at the grey winter day through a rain-splattered window. Back home, I slumped down on the sofa and rang my mother. I told her the news and she started crying. I reassured her that everything was going to be okay. She was a doctor, so knew that I was probably not in any great mortal danger, but she was also my mum. It made me feel uncomfortable to know that I had caused her to be upset.

I called some friends and met them in a pub later that evening, determined to get very drunk. After a couple of beers, I realised that alcohol wasn’t going to have any effect on me at all, so we went for something to eat instead. It was good to spend time talking about sport, music, films – any subject but the unfortunate bombshell that had crashed into my life. When any of them asked me how I felt about the news, I told them that I was fine. After all, as far as I knew, I was fine. I certainly wasn’t going to indulge in any emotional outbursts or displays of weakness. In actual fact, I didn’t really know how I felt. Unrealised by me at the time, I had shut down my emotions and was allowing an autopilot to guide me.

At home, I looked at the leaflet about testicular cancer that I’d got a fortnight before and read through it again. In percentage terms, the survival rate for those with a testicular cancer diagnosis is in the nineties, so I wasn’t unduly worried. It carried on to say that boys with a history of undescended testes had a higher incidence of developing testicular cancer in adult life. That struck a chord with me – I had undergone an operation for un-descended testicles when I was ten, or maybe eleven. My brother had told other boys at school about this, which resulted in me being baited about having had my balls amputated. I recalled the mockery with a cold shiver.

Two mornings later I was admitted onto one of the surgical wards; the first time I’d been an in-patient since I was a boy. Back then I’d had my balls fixed in place, this time I was going to have one of them removed. The pre-surgery checks were done. Eventually, after a lot of waiting about, I was wheeled down to theatre. It’s weird being pushed along a corridor where people you pass keep recognising you, but I just smiled at them or offered a cheery greeting if they looked questioningly at me. I knew the anaesthetist too and chatted to him as he prepared to put me under, all the while just wanting to be sent to sleep and to have it all over with. A mask was placed over my face, my body felt tense and rigid, my heart was thumping hard. I heard a voice scream in my head – “Please just knock me out!” It was my voice, and no-one could hear it except me.

Once the anaesthetic had taken full effect, I’d be wheeled through a set of doors into the theatre. I’d be transferred onto the operating table; there’d be a couple of surgeons, a scrub nurse, a runner (a nurse who charts equipment use and helps the scrub nurse), an ODA (operating department assistant), and maybe one or two more people there. After about an hour and a half, I’d be put on a trolley again and sent back to the ward.

I was really groggy when I woke up in bed. Everything had gone well, apparently, but I felt awful. My lower abdomen was very sore, and I felt nauseous. One of the nurses offered me morphine but I said I’d be okay – I wasn’t going to trouble anyone; I was going to be a model patient. A friend who was a nurse visited me later and said I should have grabbed the chance of morphine, as it was really good stuff. My parents came to see me just after the operation, but I wasn’t at my best then.

I was touched when friends came to visit me later; even just a quick “hello” is really good for a patient’s morale. A few people popped in from my department to see how I was, and jokingly told me to stop malingering and get back to work as soon as possible.

A couple of days later I was sent home and felt a lot better by then. My groin was bruised, swollen, and tender. I was given a surgical harness to wear: I called it my “ball bag”. The swelling went down after a few days, but it seemed that I had picked up an infection as red spots appeared on the head of my penis – a real case of spotted dick. A strong dose of antibiotics sorted that out. I didn’t do much during those first days after surgery; read books, listened to music, watched the occasional film on television.

After a week or so I was back at the surgical clinic again. The consultant said that a decision had to be taken concerning my remaining testicle. In view of the ultrasound report, it was probably going to have to be removed as well. The surgeon carried on talking, breezing over the subject easily. I felt that sinking feeling again, but concentrated on playing my role of philosophical stoic, and I think I pulled it off rather well actually. I’d spoken with my mother on the ‘phone about the forthcoming operation. She had made it clear that the wisest course of action was to remove the second ball too. Safety first – don’t take any risks. This seemed sensible and logical, but I had to make more of an effort to put on the “yeah-I’m-really-fine-with-it” act now that it had begun to become clear to me that I was going to be neutered.

I got the bus home, looking out of the window but not really seeing anything, reminding myself to keep my dignity. I was not going to be a whiner. Everything was going to be fine. Dignity, I thought to myself. Just keep it together.

The Oncology team arranged for me to have a CT scan at the regional cancer hospital to make sure that the malignancy had not spread to anywhere else in my body. In the waiting room I sat opposite a young woman in her twenties who was accompanied by her mother. The woman wore a scarf over her head; she had no hair. I told myself how fortunate I was to only be a day-tripper to the cancer theme park. I repeated this to myself once the CT report came through, stating that the cancer had not spread.

In late January, I received an appointment for the Fertility Laboratory at the maternity hospital so that I could bank some sperm before it was too late. I had never been a father; maybe I could still be one someday? A chatty lady explained the legal aspects of sperm storage. I didn’t really take in much of what she said but signed the forms that she put in front of me. Then she gave me a bottle, led me along the corridor, and showed me through a door which she then closed behind me.

Suddenly I was standing alone in a room containing a chair, an examination bed, and bedside cabinet. The last thing I felt like doing was the very thing I was here to do. Unscrewing the lid of the little empty bottle that I’d been given, I read the label; it already had my name upon it, and a number. Oh dear!

Absentmindedly, I opened the drawer of the cabinet. Ah, the lady hadn’t told me that there would be magazines to help things along. Glossy, quite new, not dog-eared or damaged – yes, I could work with those. I concentrated, flicking through pages of girls until I found the one I liked best. Come on, I thought, pull yourself together – you can do this. You’re a guy – it’s in your job description for goodness sake.

I managed it eventually and returned to reception with the bottle – lid securely in place. I was shown through to a laboratory where I was invited to look through a microscope at a few lonely sperm wandering around. The lady explained that I had produced a very small quantity of sperm, but this didn’t mean that I was completely infertile. She told me that, in view of my low sperm count, I would need to attend quite a few times to produce a viable amount. An appointment was made for my next visit.

It was much easier the second time around. Most guys produce enough sperm after one or two visits, but I needed quite a few more – they could have issued me with a season-ticket.

By now it was February, and for a few surreal weeks I made several visits to that little room to make further deposits. I only had one abnormal testicle then; it was probably for the chop soon enough, and it wasn’t producing much. I was still on sick-leave and would catch a train into Manchester, then walk along Oxford Road if it was a nice day or catch a bus if it was raining. Once I jumped into a taxi because I was late for my appointment.

The magazines seemed to change regularly; it was as if there was some sort of soft-core library in operation. On one visit they all featured ladies with enormous plastic breasts, making it rather difficult – that’s not really my thing. I had to close my eyes and use my imagination to get the job done. The next time I had an appointment there I stopped off beforehand at a newsagent to ensure classier material for myself and my fellow wankers. I checked the place was empty before scooping a broad selection off the top shelf and going to the counter. A girl appeared out of nowhere and stood beside me whilst we waited for the shopkeeper to stop messing about with the cigarettes. I blushed as she looked at me and my pile of purchases with obvious contempt. I thought better of informing her that it was all for a good cause. She didn’t look like she’d see the funny side.

All the while I was making these visits that had become bizarrely normal, the prosthetic testicle was causing a problem. It had become infected and sore and was eroding through my scrotum. When the consultant surgeon saw it, he said that it would be removed along with the remaining diseased one – but that didn’t turn out to be necessary. One evening at the end of February I had quite a bit of lower abdominal discomfort and when I dropped my trousers, the silicon prosthesis bounced upon the floor and the pain was relieved instantly. There was a hole in my scrotum, an exit wound which healed up after a couple of weeks. I still have the artificial ball at home somewhere – a strange souvenir.

Another ultrasound scan was done in early March on my remaining testicle; the report indicated teratoma once more. I asked the surgeon if it might be possible to conduct a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis; he stated that it was not. I had hoped that it might be possible to avoid losing both balls as this was going to have a greater impact than just losing one. I went to the hospital’s medical library and found a surgery textbook which explained that testicular biopsies presented a risk of opening new pathways for malignancy to spread within the patient’s body. I told myself that being castrated was better than being dead, so that was all that there was to it. I didn’t feel anything really. I wasn’t going to allow myself to feel anything.

It seemed more straight-forward the second time around. Once again, I found myself being wheeled down the corridor; once again I behaved as cheerfully as possible to any colleagues that passed. The anaesthetist informed me that he was going to use an alternative as they’d had to give me enough anaesthetic before the first orchidectomy to knock out an elephant. He gave me an injection this time – I only heard the screams in my head for a short while before it took effect. I woke up back in the ward, with my parents at the bedside. I felt much better than I had the first time; the anaesthetic was perhaps more agreeable to me. I was discharged after a couple of days with a temporary limp and no balls, ready to get on with my life.

I had accepted my lot, or at least was trying very hard to, but what made it rather more difficult was an unforeseen development that was going to make it all considerably more awkward for me psychologically.

A week after the operation, the histopathology report came back. I had been through this before with the first operation so I reckoned that I knew the script – the surgeon would sit there and drily confirm that the report found a teratoma malignancy. Only this time, there was a little surprise. The consultant explained that the histopathology report stated that there had been no malignancy present in my left testicle. There had been a benign abnormality – an epidermoid cyst. Oh! This would have been fantastic news if my ball had not already been removed, but as he spoke, I processed what he was telling me. Through the jargon and the words, the conclusion was clear: it hadn’t, in fact, been necessary to remove the second testicle.

I felt that sinking sensation somewhere deep inside me again but maintained my sang-froid. Perhaps most guys would have made a fuss at this point, but it seemed to me that getting all emotional wouldn’t really help anybody. Anyway, I’d resolved to get through this in as dignified a manner as possible, and I darned well was going to see it through. I numbly, dumbly listened as the surgeon told me that this sort of situation was unavoidable, that it was just one of those unfortunate things that happened sometimes.

A registrar from the Oncology team took a very different view. At the first out-patient appointment following my second orchidectomy, her exact words to me were – “this shouldn’t have happened”. It seemed a bit late to do anything about it now though. In the days and weeks afterwards, my friends suggested that I had solid grounds to make a complaint. I felt uncomfortable that they were angry on my behalf when I just wanted the whole thing to be over and put it all behind me. I didn’t want to deal with difficult emotions so I just put a lid on them instead and screwed it down as tightly as I could. The hidden black hole underwent a real growth spurt as a result.

Stiff upper lip, chin up, crack on. I was going to act like a man, even though I wasn’t one anymore. I didn’t complain, but I didn’t ever get on with my life either, as it turned out. Everyone seemed impressed with how well I dealt with the illness and operations, but I wasn’t dealing with any of it at all. An ex-girlfriend suggested that I was in denial – I denied this quite firmly. She was right of course; too bad it took me over twenty years to realise it.

Whilst I had been going through the tests and operations, I hadn’t really considered how things would be afterwards. I just assumed that I was going to be impotent but discovered that this was not necessarily the case.

In April I was put on male hormone replacement therapy – testosterone injections. After starting these, I experienced “hot flushes”, then one morning woke up to a pleasant surprise – an erection, my first in a while. I would later discover that orgasms feel a bit different without balls. I was literally “firing blanks” now, but at least the “gun” was in some sort of operating order again. Most of the ejaculate fluid that a man shoots when he orgasms is produced by the prostate gland, the testicles only contribute sperm to the mix. Life went on, it usually does. Now I was back at work and everything was going to return to normal once more. Wasn’t it?

Every month for a year, and for several years after that with less frequency, I had check-ups to make sure there was no secondary spread of malignancy. It seemed unlikely to me that this would happen, as the primary site of malignancy had been removed. From the first day, I never felt I was in any danger of dying. I never experienced any “battle” with cancer. The conflict that I would fight was to be a cold war within myself over the next two decades.

It didn’t take long before I was struck by the first poison darts of mockery, each one leaving no external mark but spreading its venom inside me, hidden from view.

Someone at work thought it was funny to address me in a high-pitched voice. I wondered if I should smash his face in, but I didn’t. I didn’t do anything. A former manager visited my department at the hospital; his wife was attending for an appointment. I asked him if he was enjoying his retirement, he smirked and asked me if I was enjoying mine. At first, I didn’t know what he meant, but his nasty smile made it clear to me. At a social event a drunken lady, who worked at the hospital, referred to a nearby pool table and said I couldn’t play because I didn’t have any balls. Cricket and football provide many opportunities for jokes about balls, and the lack of them. Maybe I’m too sensitive; perhaps I should just toughen up a bit. Sticks and stones…but words can hurt too. Each jibe caused a scar that never heals.

You get a year to complain about something in the NHS. Over a year after my operations, a friend told me that she’d read an item in the local paper that might interest me and sent a cutting to me through the post. It reported on a case that was being heard at Crown Court: a man had one of his testicles removed following a misdiagnosis at the same hospital as me. An ultrasound scan had indicated malignancy, but after the testicle was removed it was found that no cancer had been present. The court heard evidence that ultrasound scans were sometimes known to give “false positive” results in such cases. The consultant radiologist who gave evidence on behalf of the hospital stated that such cases were extremely rare and that they’d had no similar ones before or since. That seemed to be possibly rather like a misleading statement to me. It was as if the hospital was saying that what had happened to me hadn’t really happened at all. The other man’s misdiagnosis had occurred only a short time apart from mine – two such “highly atypical” probabilities occurring so closely together in isolation seemed to be stretching credibility a little too far perhaps. I pushed down on the sinking sensation that rose up inside me again, inadvertently providing more nourishment for the black hole to feast upon.

Ever since that late-night trip to the toilet before that particular Christmas, I had pretended that everything was fine. Everything wasn’t fine though, something was very wrong, but I didn’t know what. Perhaps I do now. I very much wish that I was able to go back and have a good long conversation with my younger self – I would have some hard-learnt wisdom to share with that naive, well-intentioned softie. I would impress upon him the importance of feelings, of being emotionally literate, and having the courage to admit weakness and vulnerability. I would tell him that it was vital that he love himself, tell him not to be afraid, and that he must not let fear dictate his actions (or lack of actions). Maybe that’s all that he needed someone to tell him. But no-one ever did, and it’s too late now.

A few years ago, I requested a copy of my hospital notes, paying the required fee. When I read through them, I discovered that the Consultant Oncologist had written to the Consultant Surgeon twice to suggest that a biopsy should be carried out on my left testicle before it was removed. I wish I’d known that then…

I attempted to complain to the hospital about my misdiagnosis twenty years ago, but was brushed off by them. I had hoped that they might provide me with some counselling perhaps, but the Chief Executive wrote to me and suggested that I should go and see my GP if I was experiencing any issues relating to the matter.

You could say that the sperm I banked all those years ago didn’t accrue any interest and the account has now been closed. When I reached 55 years of age it was destroyed in accordance with the relevant legislation. My genes will never be passed on any further – good news for humanity.

I must be one of the few people to have lost three balls; two natural, and one artificial. As Oscar Wilde might have said – to lose one testicle may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. I wonder what he would have said about a hat-trick – doubtless something very witty.

The black hole continued growing inside me. One day it overflowed, and I became lost in darkness.

Hello

I knew someone would come along, and I’m glad that it turned out to be you. I think that perhaps everything will be okay now.