He was only 17

While I was living and working in Tampa, a friend asked me if I would look at a guy who he worked with who had pain in his groin.  Ultimately I examined him and found a fairly large hernia and with is permission…and his family permission, I took him to surgery.  Getting permission from the mother was odd as she obviously mistrusted or disliked me.  Her daughters said, not to worry, she’s always that way.  It was a fairly routine hernia procedure and one where the canal was open and I had to remove a sac while closing the hernia.  In doing this, one delivers the testicle from the scrotum.  I won’t go into detail describing a normal testical but they all look pretty much the same.  This one had a tiny about 1 mm. spot on it…looked like a tiny clear cyst an was not elevated or palpable directly.  I was curious enough to remove it and send it to pathology, as I had never seen anything like that.  The path report came with a phone call…malignant!  From that point on, I did everything the pathologist told me to do.  He was scared.  I was scared for him.  His mother was suspicious and strange to me.  I explained everything I was told and total castration was done.  He recovered from that fine and was discharged.  I never saw him again, but was told he was taken directly to another hospital for more surgery right after this discharge.  Eventually I was sued by his mother for malpractice but was exonerated.  He died within 6 months.  I can’t blame her for being egregious as if he were my son, I may have done the same thing.  I felt bad for the entire experience and to this day, I regret the experience.  Sometimes you just can’t win.  He was only 17.