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by Benjamin Jesse Blackwell

So at Quiz Bowl on a Saturday morning I complained to the guys that my left testicle hurt. They all laughed and after lunch the pain had subsided. About an hour later , the pain came back and progressively got worse, causing me to even miss some Quiz Bowl matches. “Just great,” I thought to myself “8 years of soccer with no injuries and I get hurt in Quiz Bowl.” I seriously had no idea what was causing the pain. I thought groin pull, appendicitis, hernia, whatever. I groaned and moaned and whined and bitched on the way back from Ann Arbor. I got home and told my mom that I felt pain. She asked if I had thrown-up, I said no, the proceeded to run to the bathroom and puke my fucking brains out. I knew something was wrong when I was finished throwing-up. I didn’t have that relieved feeling, you know, when you’re happier for having thrown-up? I just felt miserable. So my mom and I went to the ER, I got a nifty wristband and waited around for what seemed like forever. Eventually, I received an IV. They were supposedly giving me a drug to prevent vomiting, which was funny because as I was getting X-rays I was this close to soiling their thousand dollar medical equipment with my footlong Italian BMT from Subway. Luckily, the technician sensed something was wrong by the green look on my face and rushed over with a wastebasket just in time to catch a prized load of my vomit. I later had an ultrasound, which is nothing like the MTV program of the same name. I was then sent to my own private hospital room and was finally given some pain medication, just barely enough for me to fall asleep for about an hour. I thought the adjustable bed would be easy for me to get comfortable in, but every position I contorted my ailing body into was just as painful as the next. Just before midnight, I was finally given the privilege of some sort of sustenance, a measly cup of water. I then proceeded to fall asleep, and as I awoke at 4am, I found the closest thing to hell on Earth that I’ve ever seen. The pain was there like a swift kick to the balls, and every move I made was just another thing keeping me from sleeping. Can’t roll over to the left side, that’s the side your IV is on and the sheer mechanics won’t allow it. Can’t roll over to the right side or else the IV would stretch to far, pop outta my arm and start spewing saline all over the place. For some reason, the bed won’t adjust anymore and worst of all, I can’t stand on my head and spit wooden nickels. And that was probably the worst feeling ever. Looking at the clock every 30 seconds, hoping that through some glitch in the Earth’s rotation it’s magically 8am and the nurses are doping you up as much as legally possible…but it’s not. In actuality, it’s like standing in front of the firing squad at 11am and you’re not set to be executed until high noon. You squirm, roll around trying to fall asleep, or at least pass the time. But the clock becomes your enemy, taunting you while you writhe around in agony. Finally, around 5am, some nurse gave me a pleasurable injection to the ass…wait…of Demerol. I slept until 8ish after which I was constantly bombarded with nurses, doctors, phlebotomists, monkeys, clowns and the flying trapeze. The urologist said he was gonna knock me out, stick a camera somewhere cameras aren’t really supposed to go and see what he could find. So they put me to sleep and when I woke up, I said “Did I have the operation yet?” for some reason not remembering what the docs had told me. Prognosis: kidney stone, it either broke up or passed through while I was out. So I was still feeling groggy and they brought me a meal. It could have been turkey shit for all I cared, I hadn’t eaten in 26 hours. My lips were chapped beyond recognition, resembling old, tattered sailor’s ropes. I ate like it was my last meal. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, they were all gone in less than a minute, not including the time it took for my mommy to cut it up for me. Next, a pint of milk, with straw, no longer than 10 seconds. After that, peaches, pears, pineapples…I don’t know what the hell they were except that I hadn’t eaten them since my pre-school days. Either way, I deftly fingered the slippery slices into my mouth. There was some type of vegetable concoction on my plate, carrots, peas, green beans, but I wasn’t hearing it. I went straight on to the coup de grace. Two of the finest specimens that the chocolate chip cookie community had ever created, that I had ever laid eyes on. They were slightly oversized, but not in a weird Chernoble way. I slowly bit into the chewy unit, it was sweeter than I could ever imagine. And the chocolate chips, they were brilliant. The morsels were chunky in shape, causing my tongue to do backflips inside my mouth. And it was then that I realized that something. If all I had to do to taste the finest food that’ll ever cross my palette is to endure 20 some hours of pain, well then, there are much worse things that can happen in life.