This is a story of a man who held me his God. It might be perplexing but that is how I felt when he walked in with his wife the second time after consulting me. But I am no God. Keep reading.
This man in his late thirties had serious pain in his abdomen for quite so long. The period of pain ran into many many years that he literally carried a pile of files that all kinds of laboratory tests, consultation with other physicians and surgeons, and every other thing associated with his health. So when he walked in with all his files, I was indeed taken aback. Every diagnosis he was asked to undergo to find out the underlying cause of his chronic abdomen pain did not tell the presence of any condition.
It is my habit to spend a good amount of time with the patients by probing them more. In this way, I collect a wealth of information on their sufferings and how they cope. I did a physical examination of the patient and could not find anything unusual in the abdomen that was causing the pain. . In my opinion, most reports were right in ruling out any major underlying conditions like cancer, pancreatitis, problem in liver, in the gut, appendicitis, hernia, kidney stones, etc. There are many conditions that might also escape the usual diagnostic methods.
Then I wanted to proceed with a physical examination of his scrotum. As a matter of fact, he was never willing to get his scrotum examined out of sheer shyness. But I insisted that he undergo an examination and explained him why it was necessary. None of the doctors he had visited for many years have asked for an examination of his scrotum and I was indeed surprised. He was having pain in his scrotum and I strongly suspected a condition called Epididymo-orchitis. It is a condition where there is an inflammation of the epididymis. This is the structure that is found adjacent to the testis. This structure is responsible for making sperms in the testicles. The inflammation is most probability is due to infection. Normally the infection in the prostate reaches the epididymis.
Usually, epididymo-orchitis does give symptoms like the pain the man was suffering. But unusually it might escape the regular urine test and may not give the presence of any infection. This is when the clinical acumen of the surgeons or general physicians comes into play. As I said, since I only suspected that the condition the man was suffering from could have been epididymo-orchitis, I simply prescribed him a specific antibiotic dose for a specified number of days.
To his pure joy, the man was free from the chronic pain he had been enduring for years together. So he had walked in with his wife after his condition was completely gone just to introduce me to her. She narrated how her husband had suffered for years with this chronic pain. This was the reason the man was happy to call me his God. But I am no God. I am just a normal surgeon who rightly used my clinical acumen at the right time.
