Testicular = Of or relating to a testicle or testis.
Atrophy = A wasting or decrease in size of a body organ, tissue, or part.

I’m a boy and sometimes whilst pondering the meaning of life and other equally mundane stuff my eyes have occasionally focused on my balls, its just a boy thing. The one thought that has never popped into my head during such moments of reflection is “my balls sure could do with being a bit smaller”.

Now before all you guys with hep c start to panic Testicular Atrophy is really something that you only get with cirrhosis, only small % get it and by the time you get there chances are small balls will be pretty low down the list of stuff to worry about. I think it has to do with the liver being unable to break down estrogen, but don’t quote me on that.

So why do we need to talk about small balls?

We don’t really, we do need a chat about motivation though. Its challenging to get really motivated whist on hep c treatment, the tiredness in particular can seep motivation away and I’m sure the chemical changes that occur in the body don’t help either. If I had my time over I would have come into treatment in a different way. My master plan was to prepare well, lose excess weight, get much fitter and then ease up in the weeks before starting treatment. Looking back that was somewhat of a wimps tactic, you know an “ease up, be kind to yourself, things are going to get tough” kind of thing. Looking back from week 18 I think that was a bad plan, what I should have done is not wimped out, stepped up a level and hit the [treatment] ground running and let treatment sort my level out. When it comes to deciding when to stop or ease up the body should be the only judge, all the mind should be saying is “keep going, keep going”.

Whilst not being the end of the world that does leave me in the position of trying to get re-motivated whilst on treatment. For me the remote prospect of “small balls” has done the trick. I won’t deny being a touch vain but the thought of my hair dropping out or my skin turning into that of a lizard hasn’t bothered me at all. However I draw the line, call time out, stop the bus I want off, at smallballsville.

The weights came out today for the first time in 5 months, the exercise bike got a double session, diet is and will always be spot on, smoking is done. This boy is switching into mean, lean, fighting machine mode. That nasty virus can have my hair, can have my flawless almost childlike skin BUT make a move on my balls and I will knock it spark out.

Maybe this boy is finally turning into a man?

PS Just to clarify my balls are huge, massive…I mean I could lose 90% of them and they would still be huge….I’m in the guinness book of records….never had no complaints….nope, not me……honest

Keep the faith and lets kick some viral ass.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2006 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.