Editing Samuel Pepys (section)

===Illness===

From a young age, Pepys suffered from [[bladder stones]] in his [[urinary tract]] — a condition from which his mother and brother John also later suffered.{{sfnp|Trease|1972|p=16}} He was almost never without pain, as well as other symptoms, including "blood in the urine" ([[haematuria]]). By the time of his marriage, the condition was very severe.

In 1657, Pepys decided to undergo surgery; not an easy option, as the operation was known to be especially painful and hazardous. Nevertheless, Pepys consulted surgeon Thomas Hollier and, on 26 March 1658, the operation took place in a bedroom in the house of Pepys' cousin Jane Turner.{{efn|The procedure, described by Pepys as being "cut of the stone", was conducted without [[anaesthetic]]s or [[antiseptic]]s and involved restraining the patient with ropes and four strong men. The surgeon then made an incision along the [[perineum]] (between the [[scrotum]] and the [[anus]]), about {{convert|3|in|cm|0|spell=in}} long and deep enough to cut into the [[Urinary bladder|bladder]]. The stone was removed through this opening with pincers from below, assisted, from above, by a tool inserted into the bladder through the penis. A detailed description can be found in {{harvp|Tomalin|2002}}}} Pepys' stone was successfully removed{{efn|The stone was described as being the size of a [[tennis ball]]. Presumably, a [[real tennis]] ball, which is slightly smaller than a modern [[lawn tennis]] ball, but still an unusually large stone}} and he resolved to hold a celebration on every anniversary of the operation, which he did for several years.{{efn|On Monday 26 March 1660, he wrote, in his diary, "This day it is two years since it pleased God that I was cut of the stone at Mrs. Turner's in Salisbury Court. And did resolve while I live to keep it a festival, as I did the last year at my house, and for ever to have Mrs. Turner and her company with me."}} However, there were long-term effects from the operation. The incision on his bladder broke open again late in his life. The procedure may have left him sterile, though there is no direct evidence for this, as he was childless before the operation.{{efn|There are references in the Diary to pains in his bladder, whenever he caught cold. In April 1700, Pepys wrote, to his nephew Jackson, "It has been my calamity for much the greatest part of this time to have been kept bedrid, under an evil so rarely known as to have had it matter of universal surprise and with little less general opinion of its dangerousness; namely, that the cicatrice of a wound occasioned upon my cutting of the stone, without hearing anything of it in all this time, should after more than 40 years' perfect cure, break out again." After Pepys' death, the [[Autopsy|post-mortem]] examination showed his left kidney was completely ulcerated; seven stones, weighing {{convert|4+1/2|oz|g|spell=in}}, were also found. His bladder was gangrenous, and the old wound was broken open again.}} In mid-1658 Pepys moved to Axe Yard, near the modern [[Downing Street]]. He worked as a teller in the [[Exchequer]] under [[Sir George Downing, 1st Baronet|George Downing]].{{sfnp|Knighton|2004}}