Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

The Procedure

Age: 50

This is printed on my medical chart. Also printed in red, 120-point, bold-faced type on my chart is that I am fortunate enough to have some kind of health care insurance. It is these two small bits of information, above anything else, which grants to any physician, physician's assistant, nurse, nurse's aide, other health care practitioner, phlebotomist, lab tech, or janitor carte blanche to do any examination, test, or thing at their disposal upon me.

And how can I "just say no?" Bad things happened on my 50th birthday. Diseases and conditions and syndromes, all attuned to the calendar, know when I turned 50 years of age. And then from each person I encounter, including the valet who took my car, when I drove Stacey to an appointment, so that I could not leave of my own accord, horrific examples poured forth like waters from a fractured Hoover Dam about C-A-N-C-E-R. And D-E-A-T-H.

And even though I had no observable symptoms, it was of utmost importance, imperative, in fact, to "establish a baseline" for future comparison. And if I refuse? Hah! Invisible killers lurk everywhere. It was as if some kind of radio receiver was implanted in my head with the litany of deadly illnesses, like the F-L-U, which all of a sudden became a deadly illness. I could not refuse. It began simply, with the "annual physical exam" by a high school student. He said he was a "physician," but he wasn't old enough to date yet. Now, this was a routine physical exam, but when we got to the end of the exam, which is normally the turn-your-head-and-cough test, he said, "Don't pull them up just yet. I need to check ... your prostate." For those of who aren't familiar with the prostate, or to those of you who know it as "the prostrate," the prostate gland is located in the vicinity of the the turn-your-head-and-cough test, but it is difficult to palpate -- that means touch it and feel it -- from outside the body. How does the doctor palpate the prostate from inside the body? Shit, man, he didn't ask me to open my mouth and say, "Aaaah."

There are some smartass women who will claim that they have been violated by gynecologists annually for as long as they can remember. But that's what gynecologists do. There is no preparation for this prostate thing that any old ... in this case, very young, doctor does. Fathers do not pass it along to sons by word of mouth.

There is something in the air in the clinic environment. I was sent to the appointment administrator. The appointment administrator, ever mindful of my convenience and comfort, already chose dates and times for me, which best matched my profile, from which I could pick. She did, however, with a smile, say, "Friday morning is best ... you can have a long weekend," which I should have recognized as a euphemism; but my judgment was clouded by whatever is in the air there.

Once I was away from the "campus" (Isn't that cute?), however, I had time to ponder the ramifications of their decisions; but the appointment was months away and I put it out of my mind at that point. I got a telephone call last week from a pleasant-voiced lady, sounding suspiciously like my mother (which they divined from my profile was a good thing to do), reminding me of the day and time for my "procedure," my "procedure" to be performed by one of the foremost specialists in the world, Dr. Su. Yes, it would be an honor to be seen by one of the world's best, I agreed with the "mom" voice and assured her I would have no nuts or seeds or aspirin or anti-inflammatory for the week before I saw Dr. Su and that I would read the instructions on Wednesday night to "prep for the procedure" and, of course, get the "prep kit" before then. Then, on Tuesday, I received my appointment confirmation for the "procedure." It was to be done in the "Procedure Area" at 9:30 a.m. on Friday.

I am not being polite here by not calling the "procedure" by its proper name; I need not be polite in this, my forum. The medical procedure was always called "THE PROCEDURE." They didn't want to scare me off ... my profile, you see.

Now, I knew that I had been given all kinds of instructional materials to read and a prescription to do the "prep;" but, in putting the "procedure" out of my mind because it was months away, I forgot where I put the instructional materials and the prescription; so, on Thursday at about noon, I went to Dr. Su's office to get replacement instructional materials and a new prescription for the "prep." I explained that I was having a "procedure" done and that I misplaced the stuff that I had been given when I put off the appointment for as long as humanly possible. Apparently, this happens "all the time" because that is what she told me; then she said something ominous, "You need to start the prep right now, so as soon as you get the prep kit; you need to take the pills and go home and get ready." Get ready? Get ready? THE PROCEDURE was at 9:30 the next morning. This was a little more complicated that they let on, I guess.

So, I went across the street to the pharmacy and picked up the "prep kit." This was like crazy shit here ... take these four pills, which I took right there in the parking lot, which was a mistake to do before reading that I had to drink like eight gallons of this lemon-lime stuff that I had to mix up and start drinking after the ... "first bowel movement." The first? I just took the goddamn pills ... well, how many bowel movements were there going to be? After the first? More importantly, when were they going to start? In an hour? Two? Sooner? I mean, I hadn't had anything to eat that morning. Would things move faster? Could I make it home? Or would I be stuck in some foreign restroom ... a public restroom ... a filthy, icky public McDonald's restroom ... for hours and hours ... without any reading material.

The little picture on the box showed a toilet seat with an arrow pointing at it and the notation "1 to 6" right there. What the hell? One to six o'clock? On the toilet? Drinking eight ounces of this "lemon-lime" stuff I mixed up ... every ten minutes! How many bowel movements could one person have? This was a fucking shitty thing to do to me. Five hours on the toilet? What kind of cruel joke was this? "Prep," my ass!! This was fucking Abu Ghraib shit ... wasn't there a trial going on right now about this kind of ... torture?

And the fucking thing on the dashboard of this rental car I've had for the last month showed "12 miles to E." What the fuck? I needed to stop for gas? Now? No, there was no fucking way I was going to get stuck in some shithole gas station restroom for fucking five hours ... I could make it home ... with four miles to spare.

And something was happening. Some ... thing. Serious shit. Time was running out.

Words cannot begin to describe the next several hours. How many bowel movements after that first one? Two New Yorker issues of continuous, gut-wrenching gushing is the exact answer. My legs were totally numb after the first three hours on the toilet. This was totally how it feels to be a garden hose, with liquid going in the one end and coming out the other end, the end with the brass nozzle adjusted to the hard, line drive. And when would it end? And what hell was Dr. Roto-rooter going to put me through that could be any worse than leaving the spigot run full blast for five fucking hours without having any control over it at all; after all, they would give me drugs for "THE PROCEDURE," massive amounts of mind-altering drugs before running a plumber's snake with a fucking camera attached to it right up my ass. So, the "prep" was working ... I totally didn't care about "THE PROCEDURE" anymore. Whatever Dr. Su felt like doing to me ... well, so be it. Bring it on.

Then it stopped. All of a sudden, nothing was coming out. It took me several minutes to realize what had happened. Dare I try to get off the toilet? It would be just like the evil ones to hold something in reserve for like a half hour, just as a joke ... I remained on the toilet, paging through the Sundance catalog, Robert Redford smiling at me from the inside first page. He was way over 50 ... did HE go through this? And then it hit me, thinking about Robert Redford. How often would I have to go through this torture? Is this an every five years thing or a yearly thing? I mean, if I live to be at least 110, like I'm planning, I'll go through this more than half my life? Could that be? I waited about an hour. It seemed that my colon was clear, ready for extended viewing.

Don't ask me what happened on Friday morning. I know that Dr. Su is a woman. And that one nurse said that the other nurse was the "good" nurse because she would give me drugs. I remember she told me that one drug would be demerol and one drug would be Versed, which induces amnesia. I do remember her pumping about four syringes into the IV. That's about all I remember. I guess it worked.

Next time ... I take the Versed on Thursday ... to go with the "prep."

Posted by Bill at May 1, 2005 01:35 AM