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Show 162 diagnosis o f f i c i a l. "What's wrong with everybody?" I asked. "That other doc wouldn't even examine me." "Young men tend to worry." "iv/txt afcau.r?" "You'll find out if that swelling travels down into your nuts." It happened so fast that my squadron was not quarantined and left for San Diego without me, leaving me alone. I was too sick to care. I had the mumps on both sides, and then they went down on both sides, my god the swelling, and I lay in a high fever, almost a coma, just enough aware to know how much I hurt. I understood then how my father had once felt. Our Shetland Beauty would kick anyone anytime anywhere, until she was in foal, when she got as gentle as a puppy. But Dixie, our buckskin mare, usually as gentle as a horse can be, turned the opposite, and the first time she was in foal without warning she caught my father a kick with both feet. A full sized horse, she had power. One hoof hit his thigh and raised a charley horse the size of a fist. The other hit him in the balls and he swelled up there too, bigger. It was days before he could walk. It was three v/eeks before I got out of the hospital, and before I left, the older doctor asked me to stay a day or two longer for some tests. Would I put my semen in a test tube? "My semen?" "Yeah." He handed me a huge glass tube. "In this?" "Think i t ' s big enough? You know how to do i t , don't you?" "I guess." "Most men do." That afternoon the doctor came back and pulled up a chair. I was dressed and ready to leave, reading in my easy chair. |