What I’m trying to say is, my new family doctor has huge hands.
Huge.
Oh, wait, my notes are out of order.
Let’s rewind a little.
So, my father died from prostate cancer.
*checks notes*
I’m pretty sure this post is supposed to be at least a little bit funny, but that’s not a promising start, is it? Still, persevere we must. So: my father had prostate cancer, and my uncle had it, too. Father, dead. Uncle alive. Difference is, of course, that one got checked out, the other didn’t, and I don’t think it’d be a huge spoiler warning to tell you which was which, but I’m happy to leave that puzzle up to you. My father did not have insurance because, drum roll please, he had preexisting conditions (high blood pressure), which upon retirement from his job of many eons meant he would’ve exhausted his savings just to pay for insurance. So, he skipped it for a few years in the hope that he’d reach Medicare without any grave conditions.
Grave being something of a pun, there, I guess.
Jeez, I swear this gets funny.
Point is, he died, and with him and my uncle both having had that particular brand of cancer, I am considered in the high-risk category for the disease. As such, I have to get checked every few years, which means, y’know, not to put too fine a point on it —
Finger in butt.
That’s just how that goes. Assfinger. *uncorking sound* That, plus a blood test, is how a doctor figures out if you have cancer all up in there. I’ll get this out of the way so you don’t think I’m misleading you: I do not have prostate cancer, to my or my doctor’s knowledge.
I do, however, want to tell you about this test.
Because my new family doctor — like, I just saw him for the first time last week — has enormous hands. I didn’t think to look before all this, erm, occurred. My previous doctor in the same office was a woman and did not happen to have huge hands. In retrospect, actually, her hands seem like delicate flowers — like little dandelion stems, thin and wonderfully flexible. But new doc? Hands that could pop a volleyball. Tree-trunk fingers with lug-nut knuckles.
Here’s how the test goes:
Get up. Drop trou. Drop boxers. Unlock the chastity padlock that guards the treacherous expanse between the Balls-to-Butt Bridge, thus revealing the entrance to the Mines of Rectalia.
Then, hunch forward. On elbows.
At this point, the doctor hunkers down back there and starts… you know, having a look. He figured that, whilst back there, he’d check everything out, given that folks rarely get a very pronounced or described look at their own buttholes. When you think about it, that particular little magical asterisk is completely far and away from our own eyes — it’s the Perth, Australia to the New York City of our eyeballs. It’s way the fuck down under. And compressed, too, by scads of flesh. So, Doc thought he’d check the whole landscape out back there, make sure nothing had gone direly wrong.
“Your anus looks great!” he said, and I add that exclamation point because this new doctor has a way to make everything sound like a triumph, like my excellent anus was a victory for mankind.
Hey, a little lipstick goes a long way, Doc.
He also said that my anal muscles have “good snap,” which I assume means they are like the rubber bands you find around bundles of asparagus rather than, say, a piece of gum that has been chewed so long it has lost all of its cohesion. Good snap. It made me think of the sound you get when you bite into a really good hot dog? The pop of the casing? Not an ideal image during this particular intrusion, but the mind is a funny place.
At this point the doctor, bored with the appetizers, decided to go right for the main course, and thrust one of his magnificent rebar fingers deep into my nether-passage. I guess he didn’t warn me because then maybe I’d tense up? My sphincter has good snap, after all, and I’d hate to break one of his glorious examples of manly fingerdom. Anyway. He felt around like… hm. Well, let’s say you have a milkshake, and you slurp down all of its deliciousness and then, right at the end, note that the sides of the cup remain slick with milkshake leavings, so you run your finger around the inside of the entire cup, sure not to miss a drop. It was like that. All around the inside, like he was looking for a secret candelabra or hidden bookend that would reveal a previously-concealed passage. Then he said, “Your prostate is super-smooth!”
Lando Calrissian smooth, Doc. It picks up all the ladies.
I then asked him, “While you’re back there, how’s my heart doing?”
And he gave my heart muscles a little massage and said, “Fine, fine, great. Your heart has good snap. But I did find these–” And then he pulled out a set of keys to a 1998 Saturn four-door.
Okay, that last part didn’t happen.
But he did note the super-smoothness of my prostate, and then his iron girder finger fled my most forbidden canal and left me feeling surprisingly hollowed out, as if I was standing suddenly in a room that had no furniture. (Echo, echo, echo.)
Good news was, no prostate cancer. Plus: great, snappy anus.
Which, if my wife ever wises up and leaves me, will be my eHarmony headline.
Anyway, all of this leads me to:
This is really uncomfortable stuff, getting probed like that. Elbows forward, my Ent-like doctor sticking his branches up my no-no-hole. And there’s a part of you that thinks: nope, yeah, no, this is so not worth it, this is weird, I feel weird, I’m pretty sure this is weird.
It’s not weird.
It’s normal.
And, in fact, necessary.
Because what’s worse than getting reamed out down there is, oh, I dunno, goddamn fucking cancer. Cancer — even if it doesn’t kill you! — is a sonofabitch that cares little for your comfort, and though I have not yet had it, I am very well assured (ass-ured?) it is a thousand million blamjillian times worse than the tests you gotta suffer through to detect it.
I come from family who, honestly, is a little wussy about these kinda tests, be they prostate exams, colonoscopies, any manner of testicular juggling. (Wussy and, in some cases, prejudiced. As if a prostate exam would “turn them gay.” First: nothing wrong with being gay. Second: gay and “anal invasion” are non synonymous. Third: gay is not activated via some clandestine switch next to your prostate. “Sorry, Bob, flipped the wrong switch. Broke it, too. You may wanna call your wife.”) I’ve met some women (older ones, usually) who seem somehow prudish about all the vital lady tests, too — they hurt, they’re uncomfortable, they’re weird. Boob mashing and vahooha scraping. And I get that. I dig what you’re burying.
But, really, get it done.
Get this stuff checked out when you need to get stuff checked out. I experienced a little physical discomfort, but I knew the doctor wasn’t back there like, licking his lips and masturbating with his free hand. This isn’t titillating to him. He’s an expert biological plumber, not a sex addict.
(And maybe it’s time to get shut of the notion of TMI anyway. If it really is information, then for the sake of hot fuck you can’t really have enough of it. Too much information? No such thing! I reserve the right to retract this statement after one of you emails me some graphic macro image of the cairn of skin tags adorning your third nipple.)
To reiterate:
Testing.
Get it done.
Get it done.
GET IT CHECKED OUT, FOR CHRISSAKES.
Just, y’know, look at your doctor’s hands first. I’m just saying.
morgynstarz says:
HOLY HELL, the hardest I’ve laughed in a long time! Tweeted for the rest of my universe’s delectation!
May 5, 2014 — 8:49 PM
tallian says:
I was diagnosed with colon cancer at 38. From the description of symptoms, I suspect the tumor was there as early as when I was 32.
You never know, people. Keep an eye on your butthole.
May 5, 2014 — 8:51 PM
terribleminds says:
Holy crap, 38. I’M 38.
*searches butthole for cancer*
Seriously, though, very glad to hear you caught it.
May 5, 2014 — 9:39 PM
Mozette says:
I hear ya, Chuck. Really I do. Okay, you hearing from a chick first, but I know where you’re coming from. My Uncle Allan didn’t get checked for Prostate Cancer during his whole life – thinking he was going to die from something else seeing he was batting for the other team (you know, what I mean), and by the time the doctors found out how far it went, it had eaten away his hips and part of his spinal cord.
This scared the shit out of my brother and most of my cousins, who got the finger up the butt trick from their doctors…
Now… cancer is a thing in my family. My Nanna died from stomach cancer, I’ve had a Melamona (I had 6 months to live if it wasn’t removed), Mum had lung cancer (and yet wasn’t a smoker, but worked in smokey environments in the 60’s and 70’s) and now, my Uncle… it’s just crap.
But it’s so very worth it to get checked. Yes, it’s painful. Yes it’s awkward. Yes it leaves you feeling like you’ve been a little bit violated by somebody you’re not sure about after they’ve stuck their fingers … well… there… but it’s worth knowing that they know what they’re doing.
And besides, women get their Pap Smear done in a similar fashion; except we’re on our backs, with our knees spread, a weird contraption opens our vagina up and the doctor scraps cells off the back of our cervix …. mmmmm exciting! Uncomfortable to me and most of the female population, and I’ve often tried to think of something else or of being somewhere else, but it’s difficult when there’s a doctor crouching between your thighs looking… um… there…
So, yeah, it’s weird, feels strange, but it’s worth it to know you’re not going to have cancer. 🙂
May 5, 2014 — 8:52 PM
lalouziane says:
Mozette, yes and those doctors act like they’re looking through a periscope for enemy ships! The thing is always kept in ice water and… he always says… just relax. I am not feeling relaxed.
However, a pap smear saved my life. So yes, get tested. Living is so much more important
May 5, 2014 — 9:15 PM
Mozette says:
How true is that ice water holding tank??? o.O
My doctor is a proper gyno who can work those contraptions in his sleep… so he does pap smears nice and quick and you don’t have to have him looking for anything… he knows what he’s doing. And besides, he’s a proud father of 5 children! Yep! Five! Mum always told me that it’s good when a gyno has a hoard of children because he then knows what he’s doing with his wife. 😛
And I had to go to one to get an ovarian cyst looked into… and mine did surgery too… this was a bonus! 😀
May 5, 2014 — 9:43 PM
thelizwithzombies says:
I LOL’ed at “looking through a periscope for enemy ships!” so hard!
I refer to my gyno appointment as seeing “the one with the cold hands”.
I used to be really squeamish and uncomfortable about getting my yearly pap smear. It hurt really bad (started when I was a still a virgin, ouchies), the stirrups thing made me feel horrible etc.
And then I got pregnant. Jeez. Once you’re in the third trimester they’re sticking their fingers up there every week to see if you’re dilated. Then the actual labor part. I had an epidural, and they had to manually break my water, not to mention the sensor thing they attach to your cervix to measure the baby’s heartbeat and strength of contractions. I wound up with a C-section, which meant more procedures involving shaving everything and sticking me with more IVs. All which made me very squeamish, but, ya know, what else was I supposed to? Not ever give birth?
Now, the pap smears seem like a walk in the park. 😀
May 5, 2014 — 11:43 PM
Jack Swanzy says:
Not like the first checkup is the last checkup.
May 5, 2014 — 10:41 PM
Wendy Christopher says:
Oh heck yeah – the Pap Smear! I always end up holding my breath when I’m ‘jacked up’ by that contraption, because I can’t shake the worry that if I breathe out too hard I’m going to fire that thing across the room and nail the doctor to the wall or something. If I ever coughed I’m pretty sure there’d be ninja-style death! It’s stressful, painful and… not on my top ten list of Fun Stuff To Do, but I had to have pre-cancerous cells removed from my cervix at age 24, so I’ve always made sure not to miss any of them ever since.
I’m so sorry you’ve had such a rough time with cancer in your family. Here’s hoping the research they’re doing will eventually find a way to eradicate this thing forever, so that no-one has to suffer with it anymore.
May 6, 2014 — 2:58 AM
Mozette says:
Oh! You’re funny! And that contraption always falls out of me too… it never seems to fit. And I bet a man invented the stupid thing – just like a man invented the damned bra, but let’s not go into that, shall we?
Yeah, we never had this worry when Mum was a kid… or even when I was a kid. But now it’s the time I’m an adult, nearly every person I know and am related to has had The Big C in some way or another.
So, for the last 4 years, I’ve taken part in The World’s Greatest Shave. It takes part in March and you can colour or shave your hair and get sponsored for it by getting your friends to give you money for doing it. Then, you go to an event that’s held near where you live… it’s great! No matter how much you raise, every little bit helps. I’m thinking of shaving my hair off next year. 😀
May 6, 2014 — 8:20 AM
mel says:
Sending this to my husband, maybe he’ll laugh his way to a doc!
May 5, 2014 — 8:52 PM
ardenrr says:
Ahhhh yes – Thank you! I pray the men in my life get this done. Women as well! It’s uncomfortable as hell for us too!! The nurse is all, ‘Don’t worry. If you’ve had sex, this is nothing!’ Ummm, I’m sorry, but sex should not include a speculum. That’s just my opinion. It’s not fun. But do it. It’s important.
Oh crap.. I forgot to say trigger for tmi at the beginning of this. My bad.
Get tested. Get. It. Done. TMI be damned.
May 5, 2014 — 8:55 PM
denisewillson says:
Hilarious, Chuck, really. Did bring back uglies though – my father also died of cancer. Not fun.
May 5, 2014 — 9:07 PM
terribleminds says:
Not fun at all. Sorry to hear that, Denise.
May 5, 2014 — 9:39 PM
Wulfie says:
Yes. Get tested.
Hardest I’ve laughed out loud in forever. I’d always wondered how it went for a guy. What? Now I know and I’ll probably laugh at the hubs now because I’ll think of this.
May 5, 2014 — 9:11 PM
lalouziane says:
I lost a very good friend because she did not get a colonoscopy. I went an got one even though I wasn’t quite at the age they recommended. The doctor told me, if he had his way, he’d make it mandatory at 40 or else you couldn’t get a driver’s license renewed.
The prep for colonoscopy is no fun,. It’s stressful, but the procedure itself is easy.
Colon cancer is easily prevented if found in time and normally it is slow growing. It can save your life! Do it.
Great article.
May 5, 2014 — 9:12 PM
Rebecca Douglass says:
You and Chuck together are giving me s good kick in the butt about this. It’s the prep that puts me off–I can’t even seem to fast for 12 hours for my blood tests, let alone 24. But…
May 5, 2014 — 10:16 PM
Tami Veldura says:
What on EARTH blood tests are they doing where you need to fast for more than 8 hours? Anyone with hypoglycemia would never get tested…
I get a pap done every year and my OBGYN asks for blood tests every time as a preventative check. 8 hours fasting, so I just schedule the test for some morning and eat breakfast when it’s done.
May 7, 2014 — 3:08 PM
Claire Callan Fogel says:
Thank you, Chuck. Very serious subject but you made it enjoyable. Well, more enjoyable for us than it was for you!
May 5, 2014 — 9:18 PM
Terrie says:
I am daily grateful my husband is so good about getting his yearly physicals. It meant his thyroid cancer was found early. Half a decade on, it meant his melanoma was found early. Which means he’s still here for us to celebrate our 36th wedding anniversary this summer.
Great article. Great advice.
May 5, 2014 — 9:34 PM
Leanne says:
Hahaha… Very funny-but-important message. Chuck, you da man 🙂
May 5, 2014 — 9:40 PM
Gareth Skarka says:
One of the positive side effects of 2014’s medical hell of severe diverticulitis/abdominal abcess/temporary colostomy and then re-attachment is that I know that the Doc has been over everything with a (literal) scope, and I’m all-clear cancer-wise.
May 5, 2014 — 9:47 PM
Rose Red says:
My husband peed himself laughing. Thanks. I think it was the lipstick comment that did him in.
May 5, 2014 — 10:00 PM
William Grit says:
I didn’t know robots got fleshy diseases. I will expose you. Chuck, if that’s your real name. You’re good at playing human. Bro! Where did you learn how to act human, Pluto University! Or was it UMK! University of Mar’s Cadets!
May 5, 2014 — 10:02 PM
boydstun215 says:
This is the most awesome PSA I’ve ever read. My favorite line: “He’s an expert biological plumber, not a sex addict.”
I’m making my father—a 60-year-old smoker who hasn’t had a prostate exam in over 15 years, who loves red meat and whose masculinity has his common sense in a headlock—read this. And then read it again.
May 5, 2014 — 10:09 PM
Patricia Salamone says:
Early detection is imperative. I will be 71 next month and although I am female with no prostate I was diagnosed with cancer three times since 1983. Had the surgery and am cancer free. Colon cancer at 37, Thyroid cancer at 62 and Lung cancer at 67. All were caught very early and removed. Don’t worry about what they are sticking up or in you just get yourself checked. Great post, smart man.
May 5, 2014 — 10:50 PM
birdonabird says:
This made me laugh in the middle of the Chicago Fire/PD twofer. Thank you for being so honest, amiable, and hilarious about such a serious subject. It takes the edge off and I hope makes it easier for folks to recognize the need for regular testing. Thank you, as always.
May 5, 2014 — 11:01 PM
lizlincolnwriter says:
I’ve had cancer and I’ve had uncomfortable screening tests. And I say with 100% conviction that getting a mini carjack shoved in my girl bits every year is a picnic in the park with the love of your life compared to cancer. And I had a highly treatable kind, thyroid. Other than prevention (which, other than not smoking or tanning, we don’t really know how to do), early detection is our best defense against cancer. So thanks for saying to hell with TMI and talking about this. Of course it’s not fun. But it’s a lot more fun than dying of cancer.
May 5, 2014 — 11:08 PM
Justin D. Jacobson says:
I had diverticulitis in my 20’s, leading to, by current count, FIVE colonoscopies since. (I am 43.) I had a rectal stricture a few years back, leading to annual rectal exams that make the prostate cancer screening look like a Mormon first date. On the plus side, no cancer yet. In short, suck it up and get your annual physical, people!
May 5, 2014 — 11:53 PM
Priscilla says:
It was really funny, actually! And useful, which is even better.
May 6, 2014 — 12:24 AM
DJ Kirkby says:
From a woman who is having EXACTLY THE SAME tests at the moment with more to follow (minus the prostate, of course) I really appreciate the laugh. Get checked people, it’s not fun but it may save your life.
May 6, 2014 — 12:50 AM
partlowspool says:
If you get the chance, google “Billy Connolly prostate exam.” The bit he does is so funny, he cracks himself up. Serious topic, though. Thanks, Chuck, for shining some light on the subject. 🙂
May 6, 2014 — 1:35 AM
Veritas says:
This is fabulous. I do hope that your Doc never finds anything more interesting than err whatever there is normally in the passage of the forbidden.
But honestly, think about it from the Doc’s pov
Just for a moment.
A tiny moment.
He’s probably, maybe, married, and with kids.
And he has to probe his finger into a guy’s ass and feel him up.
..I’m just saying.
May 6, 2014 — 2:02 AM
fadedglories says:
It’s not only prostate cancer, there’s rectal cancer too.
My husband had bleeding, he thought it was piles, it cleared up. A year or so later he developed constant diarrhoea, we both thought it was a bug. Eventually he had a colonoscopy and I was told he had an enormous lump almost blocking his colon.
Despite surgery and chemotherapy he was dead in 8 months at the age of 54.
I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to go through that experience.
So, man or woman, if you have any tiny concerns in the bum department get them checked out immediately.
May 6, 2014 — 3:00 AM
hierath says:
My better half’s grandad died of prostate cancer, and his uncle and his dad have both survived it. Now every time he goes to the doctors he gets them snappin’ on the old latex gloves 🙂 Better to be safe than dead.
May 6, 2014 — 4:44 AM
Bill Mann says:
Chuck, I feel your pain. I’m also at high risk for prostate issues. My father and younger brother have prostate cancer and it is not fun for either. Over the past couple of months my PSA shot up (4.7 insurance company test ==> bad rating) and sent me scurrying to the urologist. His first blood test PSA of 5.7 which is alarming.
What happened next, for me anyway, was the biopsy. The probe is significantly larger than a finger and the technology may have come from all the abductions conducted by space aliens. It is some pretty impressive tech. The one probe delivers a shot of novocaine, takes ultrasonic pictures and guides the spring loaded needles that shoot thru the wall and into your prostate, harvesting a column of cells. 12 of them. Each in a different sector of the prostate.
To get the various areas of the prostate, the probe is turned, twisted and jammed, then BAM. Needle time. Repeat 12 times, as quickly as possible. Whew! Spent the rest of the day watching old Parks and Recreation episodes.
The aftermath. Bleed a lot. Piss blood for a few days. Poop blood for a few days. Blood in semen for a couple of months. Plus there is some risk of adverse effects. After his biopsy, my brother ended up in the ER with sepsis.
My results are all good (Yay!) and all samples are cancer free. So I went back to the insurance company to get my bad rating modified since I didn’t have cancer. Naahhh, we’re going to leave it where it is and rerate you in a year. ((
May 6, 2014 — 8:20 AM
terribleminds says:
Oh that sounds fun. *shudder*
May 6, 2014 — 8:22 AM
terribleminds says:
And sorry to hear about the brother and father. Glad you’re in the clear, this go-round.
May 6, 2014 — 8:33 AM
Kay Camden says:
I just woke up from fainting and this comment was on my screen. Just kidding. Seriously though. Good for you. But phew, I’ll never complain about a pap smear again.
May 6, 2014 — 10:05 AM
murgatroid98 says:
Thanks for the laugh, Chuck, and good for you for getting it done. I had a mastectomy three weeks ago. My mother had breast cancer and three of my nieces have dealt with it, two of them with mastectomies. I always hoped I’d be spared. I have to say, the possibility of getting it someday is way different from actually getting a positive diagnosis. Yeah, I’ll walk lopsided for a while until I get my equilibrium, but it’s unlikely to kill me now. (Don’t know about chemo yet.) I’d like to see my granddaughters grow up.
Uh-oh-I’m way, way over due for the gyno stuff. Darn, I’d better take care of that.
May 6, 2014 — 8:37 AM
Mick says:
My dad died of bowel cancer when he was 38. My parents divorced when I was little, though–so he was essentially just some guy I used to know, and his death didn’t impact me the way a father’s death might usually impact a son.
But still.
I’m turning 37 on Saturday, and while I’m not exactly *worried* about dying any time soon… it’s still a weird feeling… knowing that my dad had done all of his living by the time he was about my age. I think about that a lot. And yet I haven’t really gone out of my way to live a super fantastic life. I think about *that* a lot, too.
ANYWAY.
I don’t know what I’m saying.
This is a great post. Thanks for spreading the word. And your butt cheeks.
May 6, 2014 — 9:30 AM
Julie Griffith says:
This was hilarious- except for the dead parent thing. Sorry for your loss. My dad just got checked last month because his brother died of prostate cancer. Sure enough, he has it as well. Went with him for the cystoscopy and biopsy. Talk about TMI. It got a wee bit uncomfortable when the doctor warned him about blood in semen. I’m a nurse and all, but that’s my dad. Ew. He was still feeling the effects of the Michael Jackson cocktail and was oblivious to the look of horror on my face. Keep getting checked. He had no symptoms- it was caught with the PSA test.
May 6, 2014 — 9:34 AM
Shae Connor says:
Having had the ladies’ spread-and-scrape version, I feel your TMI. Or next-door-to-your-TMI. ANYway, no, none of it is fun, but all of it is important. Good on you.
May 6, 2014 — 9:41 AM
KBSpangler says:
As someone who’s done the cancer-dance a few times, yes. Absolutely. In fact, thanks for reminding me to schedule the annual appointment.
As someone who’s veterinarian is a literal Scottish giant, this reminded me of something the vet techs said about how everyone comes to him to express their dogs’ anal glands, because bigger fingers mean it has to be done less often. Which, from that poor vet’s perspective, is a weird form of job security.
May 6, 2014 — 9:55 AM
Angelle says:
So this was great 🙂
Also, weird.
Yet great.
May 6, 2014 — 9:59 AM
Alexa Muir (@awannabe_writer) says:
Great post and so, so true – no matter how awkward/embarrassing/painful a medical check-up is, it’s all daisies compared to the illness it can detect. Your post reminded me of a stand-up routine Billy Connolly did a long time ago about prostrate exams – I link it here as it is still hilarious all these years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1enmyAmpik
May 6, 2014 — 10:11 AM
nlhartmannn says:
Okay. I’ve been avoiding this stuff. Burying my head in…somewhere. I’m going to schedule tests in the next couple of weeks. I thank you. My children thank you. My grandchildren thank you.
May 6, 2014 — 10:36 AM
Chris Dangerfield says:
Literally just went through all this myself with my doctor. Perfectly truthful and hysterically funny write up. Now take your story (and if you are me) add in the fact that I’m gay and every time this happens I think… Erm… yeah, but I don’t like this?? Aren’t I supposed to like this? Other than that random odd mind-fart, everything you say is true. And my Doc of 20 years does the same. Every fricking thing is a triumph. “GREAT!!! NO LUMPS ON YOUR TESTICLES. WONDERFUL. YOU’RE A CHAMP!!!” And it’s only afterwards you realize how odd it is to have him say it in that tone of voice and that even though I’m older than 12… I’ll take the praise and be happy about it. Wonderful write-up, and poignant contrast to the evil virulence of that particular disease. I’ve lost some dear friends to that one. So agree agree… even if your doctor is Ent-like… just hope that he doesn’t go sloooooow. Thanks much for this post.
May 6, 2014 — 11:20 AM
Catastrophe Jones says:
My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and ended up implanted with radioactive seeds for treatment. All’s well for now — thank god for the yearly ass check.
As for me, this past January I was declared ‘cancer free’ after having a total hysterectomy due to not one, but TWO kinds of cancer having a fucking rave up there.
My GP had to make a gyn appointment FOR me because I was so blase about it. Thank fucking god I went because it got all HPV-Lovecraft in my snappy cervix.
Ladies and Gents — get your shit checked. Get your sons and daughters vaccinated against HPV. Don’t be alarmed. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be squeamish. Don’t be shy. Those things end up with you dead, and your family miserable.
There are dozens of things we do on purpose, that aren’t 100% enjoyable, knowing they’re for the greater good of our future (mowing the lawn, brushing our teeth, raising children) — 15 minutes of ‘Did I shower well enough this morning? Should I have waxed? ARE MY GENITALIA THE BIGGEST FREAKSHOW THIS DOCTOR HAS EVER SEEN? (short answer, no, really — practices are larger than you think, and med school is REALLY eye-opening)’ is the tiniest price in the world for making sure you’re going to be around for a good long time.
Keep getting fingered, Chuck. We’d like to keep you around.
May 6, 2014 — 11:29 AM
Tia Kalla (@tiakall) says:
Wow, Miriam was right – it really is cancer everywhere :/
I have the opposite problem – since my mother had breast cancer, I’d LOVE to get a mammogram earlier rather than later… but most places around here don’t offer them until you’re 35. When my mother was 35, she’d already finished her post-cancer treatment. Argh!
May 6, 2014 — 11:30 AM
Luna (@lunamoth42) says:
Yeah, currently in treatment for Adenoid Cystic cancer… for which there really isn’t a test outside of, I think, gene sequencing. Or a really good treatment protocol, either. Found it by accident at age 26 (am 40 now). But do, absolutely, get screened for stuff as early as you can. I think my current health insurance (which includes one of those Aflac indemnity things) gives you a cash kickback just for getting a mammogram.
A test lasts the length of one doctor visit. Treatments are over and over and over… get tested.
May 6, 2014 — 11:30 AM
Terri says:
My colonoscopy found a teeny little polyp.
Which the lab lost. The lab lost my fucking polyp.
Someone didn’t snap the cover on the polyp-checker/spinner machine and it was launched at eleventy-billion miles per hour. However, they completely took the machine apart and found a pin-prick of my polypy goodness clinging to a hinge. They swore that no other polyps had been pulped that day so it must be mine (very small town, so I believe them.) The tests on the polyp-pulp were negative. Twas nothing but a colon-pimple.
My doc, one of those nothing-phases-him types, was gobsmacked. The lab, totally chagrined, couldn’t issue a report, but they blurbbered their apologies and did all the testing they could.
My doc offered a repeat test for free, but he’d already removed the damn polyp and I had no desire to grown another one for the lab’s convenience. So, a repeat performance in 5 years. I have zero family history, so I am good with that.
Get tested. If nothing else you get some peace of mind and the knowledge that your polyp is in low-earth orbit.
May 6, 2014 — 12:09 PM
virginiallorca says:
Some people like it, although not necessarily in that venue.
May 6, 2014 — 12:46 PM
authordjdavis says:
Hehe! Gotta hate a doctor with sausage fingers. I’ve always wished for a female doc but I never get one. Having Crohn’s, I get frequent tests in that region.
May 6, 2014 — 3:16 PM
Ellie Mack says:
Not a dude but I can so relate with the booby smashing and vahooha scraping. It’s not like my gynocologist goes out and has a smoke after every examination there. At least the guys get a finger, we get a speculum that some doctors don’t even bother to warm! Wise words, not TMI – just uncomfortable information because we are a rather uptight society.
May 6, 2014 — 3:44 PM
Petra Poet says:
Never thought I could laugh so much about a post on prostate cancer. At the same time you got the importance across.
May 6, 2014 — 4:05 PM
planetgrace says:
OMGOMGZOMG This is the best article you’ve written, even better than 25 Things you should know about Toddlers. Bless you. You’re saving lives!
May 6, 2014 — 4:15 PM
Wesley says:
I’m sorry to do this (not really), but I never get such a great opening to tell this story.
I had a friend. We’ll just call him Waldo. Waldo and I were in a band together. Waldo had a kidney disorder and no health insurance. Still, he never had any dangerous episodes or anything, because he knew what to do and how to eat in order to keep anything bad from happening. At least we all thought so.
One day, I’m in the emergency room with him. It’s more like a cafeteria, there are no interior walls and about two dozen hospital beds separated only by curtains on rails. It looked like a quarantine.
A young man in a white smock steps into our little quadrant of the room and claims to be one of a handful of doctors on call in the area that afternoon. He expresses concern that waldo has no recorded medical history for about the last eight years. He tells Waldo and I how important it is to get regular exams. Finally, Waldo is so scared of what could be happening today with his kidney disorder never having acted up before that he’ll gladly do whatever the doctor says.
The doctor says he wants to check Waldo’s prostate. Waldo agrees immediately. The young doctor spends several minutes down there, grabs his clipboard and leaves. Over the next half hour or so, Waldo and I hear this doctor moving about the room giving the same speech about exams to other patients. Waldo and I joke about how butts this guy must have probed over the course of the afternoon.
Eventually, a different doctor steps into our little curtained area and apologizes for making us wait so long. He starts asking Waldo some questions and Waldo tells him that the other doctor already came by and asked them. The doctor asks, “What other doctor?” And we basically find out that Waldo, among several others in the room, was the victim of a very health-conscious pervert. The doctor was even familiar with the description we gave him. Apparently, the guy had become somewhat of a legend on the campus.
The story is certainly horrifying, but you might be surprised at how often that story gets laughs.
May 6, 2014 — 4:58 PM
Dan Thompson says:
My doc — also with big hands — started testing me at 40. When I went back for my physical at 41, I was heard to say — screeching like a 10-year-old — “You mean that’s *every* year now?”
May 7, 2014 — 1:18 PM
Tami Veldura says:
Ladies, this shit can save your life, seriously. My best friend was just diagnosed with cancer, caught with a routine pap. She has cancer (BOOO!) but it’s stage one and she has a very good chance of beating it (YAAAY!). She’s only 26.
Sexually active? GET TESTED!
Not sexually active? GET TESTED!
Virgin/asexual/gray-sexual? GET TESTED!
Intersex/complicated/not easily defined as male or female? TALK to your doc and make them test you for EVERYTHING.
Genetics are weird. Cancer is weirder. Don’t let it set up shop.
May 7, 2014 — 3:14 PM
nonyabizz says:
wait till they start logging you in for colonoscopies…. *sigh*
August 31, 2016 — 4:54 PM
Sarah says:
Yeah, it’s 2017, and I’m finding this, and…thank you.
May 31, 2017 — 5:54 PM