Tough Love for My Testicles

It was an event that has to happen every so often. Considering it's been eight years since the last time, it was overdue.

I had a physical.

Now, I have a queue of excellent excuses for why it's taken so long to get back to a doctor's office.

There was how my previous doctor canceled an appointment, leading to me procrastinating before making a new one. After all, I thought we had a special connection, and he went and just canceled. Was I supposed to go running back to his arms without letting him feel a slight chill from my cold shoulder?

Of course, he decided to join Doctors Without Borders (or something similar, hell if I can remember) before I could go crawling back, so that ended that relationship.

A replacement doctor took his place, so I was all set. Almost. Turns out, Dr. I-Can't-Remember-Her-Name-Because-She-Never-Saw-Me wasn't setup with my insurance yet, so I'd have to wait until her paperwork went through for another physical.

Then she left the hospital, and I was a man without a doctor.

Most people would rectify the situation, especially after the nagging letters started coming from the insurance company about needing a new PCP. But I had been burned twice, and my heart was still tender. I was in no rush to race back to a medical relationship that would leave me feeling so ignored and, yes, unloved.

Add on to this the fact that the worst news of my life is most likely to come in a doctor's office, and my subconscious mind had no problem whispering thoughts of procrastination into my hospital-phobic head.

So eight years passed.

Now, when it comes to medical mentality, my wife and I are polar opposites. When she gets a splinter, she wants to run to the hospital to make sure it won't make its way to her heart and kill her in her sleep. And if I were to cut off a hand, I would most likely explain to her, "If I just rinse it with water, it should be fine."

(This showed itself in one of the more horrific events of my college years. I managed to put a gash in head by being a total jackass. It involved a high jump down a flight of stairs with a low overhang. As I sat with blood literally gushing down my face, the EMT tried to take me to the hospital. When I attempted to talk my way out of going, he simply stated, "Do what you want, but you'll have to sign a waiver." Only the threat of Northeastern being free and clear of the lawsuit I had in the back of my mind made me agree to going to the Emergency Room. That low overhang was their fault, damn it, not my idiocy and deciding to jump down flights of stairs.)

My wife goes to a women's clinic, and is quite fond of her doctor. She's also sick of me blowing off routine medical checkups. This led to her making me an appointment.

So I went, and here's what happened.

I arrived at the clinic feeling a bit awkward. After all, it's a practice for women. Cathy had assured me that husbands are welcome, but when I arrived, the place was, as they say in French, sans sausage. I felt like the creepy guy in a movie that's trying to find his wife in a woman's shelter who had run away after years of abuse.

Pushing that feeling aside, the signing-in/waiting room process was quite nice, actually. Then a friendly medical assistant took me to the "pod" and did the whole height/weight measurement.

(I was pretty happy at this point, since Dr. "I'm going to go save the world" had basically called me a tubby son-of-a-bitch when we last met, and now I was 40 lbs lighter. This was also my first line of defense when this doctor made the old BMI reference and alluded to the fact I was still a tubby son-of-a-bitch. The "I just lost a lot of weight," angle was a sure-fire way out of the healthy living speech I'd heard way too many times already.)

So Dr. Y arrived after a long wait, and things went well. She did the usual interview. Family medical history, current medical issues, etc. We discussed my least favorite health topic, the numerous lipomas that dot my torso and arms, a chronic source of minor pain. She gave me the same advice I'd heard before: they were so small and numerous as to no merit removal unless they grew bigger or hurt more. No surprises there.

We moved on to the disrobing part of the festivities. There's a certain ritual to this process, one I almost disrupted by being ready to simply get naked as soon as she told me I'd need to put on a johnny. (When a woman tells me to get naked, I don't dilly-dally.) Then the voice of reason in my head reminded me that is was not appropriate to remove clothes yet, and waited for her to leave before I switched attire.

When she returned after what I have to assume to be another patient visit (it took a while), the typical poking and prodding ensued. Then she started talking about my testicles, and things went downhill fast.

My testicles are, by and large, my good buddies. Now Dr Y was telling me about all the horrible things that could happen to them, with cancer being at the top of the list. This kind of information makes me giggle nervously. (That's right, I literally start giggling. Sigh.)

She then informed me she was going to teach me how to give myself a testicle examination. I had heard tips in the past about this process, but this was going to be a show-and-tell.

It started innocuously enough, with her feeling the lymph nodes in the crooks between my legs and crotch, having me feel them as well. Then she proceeded to the Boys.

In my memory, I swear she said, "You really have to roll them around." She might have used a different wording than that, but she proceeded to treat them like a pair of marbles free to roll around in sack. My giggling really kicked in now, and I fought the urge to scream, "THEY'RE ATTACHED IN THERE!!!"

Now, one question I've been asked a couple times by women is, is there a risk of getting... "excited" by this attention? For me, the answer is no for two simple reasons:

1. There is nothing sexy about a doctor's office and a cancer exam. I don't care if a naked super model was giving the Boys a look-over, Mr. Happy is not going to salute.
2. While some guys may dig ball abuse (and some go as far as to pay for the service, I've heard), my little buddies do not like being worked over. It only makes me giggle nervously.

As a matter of fact, I have some free advice for the ladies: If your man is in the mood and you're not, ask him when was the last time he examined himself for cancer. He'll go from ripe banana to elephant trunk faster than you can say "flaccid."

(And also, I know every women reading my bitching is thinking, "At least you don't need an exam that involves a speculum!" I do not, and I'm very grateful about this. And I'm sorry you do.)

So anyway, back to my testicles getting worked over. The process was so uncomfortable for me that after she was finished, it took me a minute to realize that she had not proclaimed the Boys riddled with malignancy. Hurray, little buddies! You're not (currently) trying to kill me.

This brought us to the end of our little adventure. She told me to get dressed and head to the lab area to get blood drawn and a tetanus and pertussis shot. The lab tech proceeded to draw the blood and was ready to send me packing before I pointed out that the tetanus shot was checked off as well. (Gotta be on your toes at a hospital.)

Then I was off to the rest of my day, a bit sore, but otherwise in good health.

I may even do it again before eight years pass.

PS: That tetanus shot is hurting like a mother fucker right now...