Procedures part II

I believe that there is a general consensus among heterosexual men that anal intrusion of any kind is something to be avoided at all costs. There are exceptions to this rule of course, as there are to all things, and to those exceptional men I say this; lucky for you. You shouldn't have as much of a problem in dealing with some of the required tests and preparations involved in order to satisfy the best interest of your continued health. I, however, count myself as one of those men who considers my rectum (damn near killed him) to be a one way street used exclusively as an exit, which makes my adventure somewhat problematic since I have recently learned that, much to my dismay, this is not the case.

That being said, the prostate biopsy, as intrusive as it is, is the most important test to have because it gives the Doctors physical and conclusive evidence as to whether or not cancer exists in your prostate. Without it, its just a guessing game, and you don't want to be guessing. The sooner you can confirm cancer, the sooner you can begin treatment, the longer you will live; it's that simple.

There are some things that you need to do in order to prepare for the blessed event. First, if you happen to be on any medication that has a blood thinner in it you have to stop taking it tens days before the procedure. This is to help prevent excessive bleeding from the prostate after the samples have been taken. After all, it's not like you can put a "band-aid" on it. If, like me, that medication is preventing some kind of pain that you have been going through, well, sorry about your luck kid, you're going to feel some hurt. Then there's antibiotics, three of the LARGEST pills that I have ever seen in my life (holy horse pills batman). These are to prevent infection. One taken the day before, one the morning of and one the following day. You can't eat for twelve hours before and, of course, there is the enema which needs to be done two hours before the surgery. Did I mention the enema?

I've never had an enema, didn't know the first thing about it, and they ask you to do it yourself in the morning. So I buy this thing a couple of days in advance and I'm looking at the instructions for self administration and the recommended positions for best effect and I'm thinking, "how the hell am I gonna do this?" Remember, I was forced off of my meds so at this point I'm half a cripple, simply walking is a chore, and these people want me to lay on my back with my legs in the air, stick a tube up my ass and squeeze a bottle of some oily liquid through it until it's almost gone? I found the prospect...daunting, to say the least. I have to give props to my Brother at this point, who, upon hearing about this, offered to administer it for me. I thanked him kindly but had to respectfully decline his offer. There was no way I was going to make him do that, much, I think, to his relief. The sentiment, however, was much appreciated.

What follows is what many people might consider as being TMI (too much information) but in hindsight I think it was funny so I'm going to share it.

So the day arrives. My appointment was for 8:00am which means I have to try to pull this stunt off at 6:00 in the morning. I hobble into my bathroom, place a towel on the floor which I lay down on and proceed to follow the directions on the box. The part you insert and the bottle are one unit, much like a bottle of glue except the nozzle on top is longer, like a tube. I had to reach around the side of my elevated leg with my right hand so I could squeeze the bottle. It started out well enough, I managed to get the tube inserted but when I tried to squeeze the bottle I found that because of the awkward position I was in I couldn't get enough power behind it to make anything come out, so I reached down between my legs with my other hand in order to assist. That worked and I was able to nearly empty the bottle, as per the instructions, but then a nightmare occurred, I cramped up! I couldn't bring my legs down! So there I was, laying naked on my bathroom floor, legs akimbo, with an empty enema bottle stuck up my ass, unable to move! Quite a predicament. My Father, who was to drive me to my appointment, was waiting for me downstairs. I considered calling him for help but decided that I didn't want to curse him with having to live with the image of me in this rather compromising position for the rest of his life, so, with great effort and a decent amount of pain, I managed to roll sideways and bring myself to all fours thereby allowing me to stretch out the cramp and bringing this rather unpleasant, but humorous in hindsight, endeavor to an end.

Now off to the hospital. Once again I'm lead into the room, this time by two nurses (yeehaw, a threesome, but once again, wrong story). They lay me on my left side, one is explaining the procedure to me and getting me to sign indemnity forms, the other is preparing me for the Doctor by sticking the scope into the area of my body that was formerly used as an exit exclusively but now seems to be getting an awful lot of two way traffic (there's never a cop around when you need one) and getting it lined up for the biopsy. I never actually saw the scope but it felt like it was bigger than the enema tube but smaller than a finger. She was digging around, it brought the sensation of someone playing with a pencil in my ass. The Doctor arrives and begins by giving me freezing in my prostate, much like a dentist's needle. The sensation from the needle traveled through my prostate and right up to the tip of my "wee man", it was a little shocking. I'm not sure how well it worked because I felt everything. The biopsy itself is done by poking with a needle that pops out of the scope and takes small pieces of tissue when it retracts. It sounded and felt like being shocked with an electric BBQ starter, not very painful but certainly not pleasant. He took 14 samples. The whole thing lasted about 15 or 20 minutes.

They told me to anticipate blood in my urine for the next couple of days, and blood in my semen for a couple of weeks. It didn't last that long for either, but it was there.

I've already written about the results. I hope that this story helps to give anyone who may have to go through this some peace of mind. It wasn't as horrible as you may imagine it to be in your head. I'm a total wimp when it comes to stuff like this and I got through it, so if I did it, anybody can.