HICKORY, NC – Jerry Thompson has been dealing with a hoarse voice over the past week, something not uncommon as temperatures cool with the approach of winter. He felt it lingered a little too long, so he went to his primary care physician (PCP) for a quick evaluation. Both were surprised as he not only had a frog in his throat, but tadpoles in his scrotum.
“Well, we were shocked frankly,” said Thompson’s primary care physician (PCP) Erica Brownstone. “I told him to say ‘Ahhhh’ which he did and I thought I heard a frog’s croak. I used a tongue depressor and there was the cute little frog. I was able to coerce the guy onto the tongue depressor and pull him out. Just like that, Thompson’s voice returned to normal.”
Being thorough in her physical exam, Brownstone didn’t just stop there, though many probably would have. And it’s a good thing she did. As she examined Thompson’s genitals, she realized that his scrotum didn’t feel like a bag of worms. “You know what it felt like?” she asked rhetorically. “That’s right: a bag of tadpoles.”
Realizing this was a case for the ages, she consented and Thompson agreed to a testicular ultrasound. “I was shocked when the radiologist clinically correlated,” she explained. Gomerblog was shocked as well. “After hearing about the frog in the man’s throat, the radiologist was 100% sure of the read. It could only be one thing: testicular tadpoles.”
There isn’t much in the literature about testicular tadpoles. In fact, there’s nothing. Could the initial laryngeal frog have seeded into other parts of the body like the scrotum? That’s what Brownstone thinks. “But what’s the treatment?” she asked. “Everyone is baffled; infectious diseases, urology, everyone. Since he’s asymptomatic, we’ll just monitor I guess.”
Thompson laughed. “You always hear that expression about getting a frog in one’s throat. I always worried about a spider going into my mouth… I guess other creatures can get in there. And into one’s genitals too!” Thompson seems relieved that at least he knows what he’s up against. “I’m fine for now, no pain down there. But once by balls start croaking, believe me, someone’ll hear about it!”
