The snip? More like mutilation

This is a cautionary tale, a warning to men everywhere. Do not believe the siren voices of those who tell you that vasectomy is a simple, painless procedure. Listen to your doubts. In saying this, I will doubtless be derided by family planners and scorned by men who have had it done and have never complained. But it is a story that must be told - and told while the whole, grisly episode is still fresh in my mind.

The story began last year when my wife, who is 38, gave birth to her second and my fourth child (I have two grown-up daughters from my first marriage). At the age of 52 I thought I had probably done my bit for the world's population, and my wife was sure she had done hers, which left the tricky question: what do we do about contraception? Having rejected the other options we talked about me having "the snip", a word cleverly designed to make the procedure sound as easy as cutting hair or clipping nails.

Some weeks later I went along to the Marie Stopes clinic in Whitfield Street, just off Euston Road, to do interviews for a health story I was writing on vasectomy. It's a cosy place, and I immediately felt at ease as I spoke to one of the doctors. "You see guys coming in and they are literally shivering with fright. But they go out with smiles on their faces thinking, 'Why did I worry about that so much?'"

So that was it. Easy as pie. The hook was baited. Finally, last month, I took the bait and was yanked into the net. I found Marie Stopes on the Internet and booked an appointment, even paying the £50 deposit on-line. I was sent a booklet through the post outlining the procedure, along with instructions to bring a pair of tight underpants - no boxers allowed.

On arriving at the clinic I was counselled by a charming woman who told me my terror was quite normal. She also told me cheerfully that I'd be able to work again in a couple of days and asked me to read and sign a disclaimer.

I didn't really take it in, but I suppose it meant something like: "I am now about to entrust my most precious parts to your mercy and promise not to sue if it all goes horribly wrong." With that, I was dispatched down flights of steps to pay the rest of the £265 fee, then down some more steps into the chamber of horrors, where you wait your turn as ashen-faced men emerge from the little theatre.

Finally it was my turn. As ordered, I stripped off my trousers, put on my tight underpants and stepped into the theatre, where a male surgeon and two women awaited me. The women's precise roles escaped me. Safety in numbers, I guess, if the patient goes berserk.

The first thing that hit me was the smell - an overwhelming stench of burnt flesh. This was extremely unnerving, but not surprising: the operation is carried out with a diathermy instrument that burns a single, half-inch hole in the scrotum and then seals up and cauterises the vas deferens (the tubes which carry sperm).

As I stretched out on the couch, bare from the waist down, every muscle in my body tensed. The surgeon and the two women chatted to me amiably. "Do you want to sit up and watch?" the surgeon asked. "No thank you," I managed to say. Did he think I was mad?

The needle went in with the local anaesthetic. Okay, it wasn't the worst pain I'd ever felt, it didn't even compare to the dentist's drill. But the dentist operates on your teeth, for heaven's sake - this was my testicles.

My toes kept curling and uncurling and my hands were balled into fists. The women chattered on and I found myself chatting back, all the time squirming and wriggling as, down below, the surgeon did his business.

There was a lot of very uncomfortable tugging and wrenching as tubes were manipulated and burnt. The jab in the testicles might have anaesthetised the area, but I could still feel what was going on and it was very disturbing - every bit as bad as I had feared. The operation lasted 10 minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. Then I was shunted out with a pack of wadding and bandage in my underpants. The next two days passed in a blur.

I inched my way around the house, too terrified to even look at what they had done. When I finally did examine the damage, my testicles were bruised black and swollen to twice their normal size and the wound was weeping.

By the third day I felt a bit better, and as I had been told I could go back to work within a couple of days, I did so. I had an interview with the famous Brazilian footballer Pele that I didn't want to miss.

But I was still in pain, and little did Pele know as he sat there telling me about his reasons for fronting a worldwide campaign to take the taboo out of impotence, that I was wondering whether my own equipment would ever work again. The next day, I paid for my haste in going back to work so early. The worst of the pain had returned with a vengeance, and so it has been ever since.

I called the Marie Stopes clinic and spoke to a nurse who reassured me everything was fine. I then went to see my GP who, like all men, winced when I told him I'd had a vasectomy and gave me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory painkiller, which helps. It is now two weeks since the operation-The pain should be a thing of the past, and I should be cheerfully thinking to the future and a carefree love-life. But it's not quite like that.

The pain is always there. Some days it's worse than others. The bleeding hasn't stopped and there are two big blood clots in my scrotum. I'm sure one day the bad memories will fade - just as the agony of childbirth does for women - and, fair enough, it's at least in part a trade-off for what women have to endure.

I have absolutely no complaints about the first-rate staff at Marie Stopes and, in the long run, I'm sure I'll decide it was all worth it. But right here and now I want the world to know that I didn't like what happened to me one bit. The "snip" is a misnomer. Mutilation sounds a better word to me.