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Vegas man begs web for $1m to fix gigantic scrotum

'A huge watermelon encased in a bandage'

An American has turned to the internet to raise $1m to pay for an operation to fix his scrotum, which has swollen to an eye-watering 45kg.

Aussie Reg reader Andrew pointed us towards the case of Wesley Warren Jr, who has been afflicted with scrotal elephantiasis for the last three years.

The condition is common in Africa, where is it caused by a mosquito-borne parasite.

However, Las Vegas resident Warren apparently puts the condition down to an unfortunate bedroom mishap – he caught his testicles with his leg, while twisting in bed.

His undercarriage had swollen to the "size of a soccer ball" by the next day, he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. As if that wasn't bad enough, the swelling carried on until his scrotal sac had reached spacehopper proportions.

The condition, unsurprisingly, has affected his ability to walk and go to the toilet. It has also scuppered his relations with the opposite sex and, unsurprisingly, led to periods of depression.

The University Medical Center in Las Vegas has put his condition down under the heading of "edema" – ie, an excess of watery fluid in body tissue.

A hernia operation and courses of antibiotics have failed to ease the situation, and doctors have found no trace of the usual pathogenic suspects, leaving Warren contemplating, in the words of a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, "what looked like a huge watermelon encased in a compression bandage".

While Warren lives near some of the finest medical brains in the world, he is on Medicaid, which is unlikely to cough the $1m he has been quoted by UCLA to set himself right without endangering other vital parts.

So he has turned to the media to try and raise donations, appearing on the Howard Stern show and launching a newspaper campaign to publicise his email-based financial appeal. A massive surge of interest should get the coffers filled, details of which can be found in this article. ®

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