Steve Canavan: Investigating groin strain turning into a real pain

The big issue in our country at the moment is the escalation of the virus and the new national lockdown, but I’d like to talk about something much more important – my right groin.

I’ve been suffering from pretty bad pain in that region for the last few months.

I’d like to say it’s a result of the incredibly amorous and physical nature of the relationship between myself and Mrs Canavan, but that would be fabrication of the highest order. Indeed the last time we had any kind of romantic interaction - at a family wedding in 2018 when Mrs C had too much gin and accidentally undid the padlock on her bloomers - our son Wilf was conceived, and because two children already seems like one, possibly two, too many, I’m unwilling to take the risk of something as devastating as that happening again. Besides chastity is a much more straightforward lifestyle, with the added bonus that you don’t have to wash the bedding as much.

Anyway, this pain has been going on since about October and got so bad it was stopping me sleeping.

First, I tried deep heat gel, purchased from Boots, which is supposed to be great for muscular pain. The problem, though, is it proved unsuitable for the part of body where my pain is.

The groin area, you see, is very close to a man’s private parts and five minutes after applying the gel for the first time – when its surprisingly powerful effect suddenly kicked in - I leapt around seven feet in the air and thought I was dying.

It felt like – and apologies for anyone offended by the use of this word but, hey, it’s a part of the body, like nose or ankle – my right testicle was quite literally ablaze and moments away from combusting, which wouldn’t have been pleasant for either myself or Mrs Canavan lying beside me.

The heat was so bad I briefly contemplated ringing the fire service and asking them to bring an extra strong hose to douse the affected area.

Thankfully a lengthy, cold shower cured the problem, but suffice to say I’ve not dared use the gel since.

I told my mother about my ailment over the phone and heard her start to type. I assumed she was playing online bridge as this is what she does during every single phone call. I’ll ask her a simple question, like “have you had a nice morning mum?” and she’ll reply, ‘yes it’s fine love, good bidding Sheila’. It’s slightly off-putting but I let it go as we all need something to do to get through lockdown.

Anyway, turns out this time the typing was nothing to do with bridge.

‘Just googled your symptoms,’ she announced solemnly. ‘It could be bone cancer’.

“Is that the first thing that came up?” I replied, horrified, wondering how I was going to break the news to Mrs Canavan that she’d soon have to find someone else to take the bins out each week.

‘Well, no,’ my mum conceded. ‘It could be a hernia or a groin strain’.

“Couldn’t you have started with those and worked your way up to cancer?” I asked, but by that point she’d lost interest in my chances of seeing next Christmas and moved on to telling a story about how her neighbour Lottie had ordered kitchen roll off the internet but that when the package it arrived it contained 24 tins of grapefruit (‘but her son Nigel – you know the painter who’s on his third marriage and lives in Exeter with a Vietnamese girl - adores grapefruit so she’s going to keep it’.)

Earlier this week, slightly worried about the ongoing pain, and not particularly reassured by mother’s diagnosis, I went to the doctor’s.

‘You’ve been in before about your thumb haven’t you?’ the GP said.

I’ve never been in about my thumb before and a great believer that it’s important in life to say what you’re thinking, I replied, ‘no I’ve never been in about my thumb before’.

She stared at her computer looking puzzled. “I’ve been in about my toe before,” I said trying to help her out.

‘Ah, of course,’ she said, ‘your toe’, as if the two body parts were so similar it was an obvious mistake to make.

She told me that because I have arthritis in my toe it is most likely arthritis in my hip.

Then, speaking as casually as if she were telling me we’d run out of cornflakes, she added, ‘you might need a hip replacement’.

“A hip replacement,” I spluttered. “But I’m 44, not 104.”

She explained some younger people need the procedure and sent me to a nearby hospital for an X-ray straight away – which worried me further; why was it so urgent? Oh my god, maybe my mum was right?? Why the hell did I never take out life insurance??

To cut a long story short, I have had the X-ray and must call in a fortnight for the results.

I know you’re worried about me – I can sense it – so I’ll let you know the results. In the meantime, I advise any men with a groin strain not to use deep heat gel – you may never walk the same again.