It took us a year, but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve finally signed on with a new insurance.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We actually managed all this a few months ago, but opted to remain on our current COBRA insurance for a little longer.\u00c2\u00a0 The change date has provided some motivation to attend to some business.<\/p>\n
It was one of those business needs that brought us into the appointment where I sat and watched a young female doctor feel up my husband.<\/p>\n
Talk about awkward.<\/p>\n
We were counseled over and over again about the procedure.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s considered permanent,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we were reminded.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How many kids do you have now?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d they asked again.\u00c2\u00a0 Finally I showed them a video of Kate, one where she is Very Upset because we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve asked her not to eat raisins out of the trash can.\u00c2\u00a0 And followed it up with a recording of Will talking about Ninjas from Chinese who taught firemen to fight dragons (“they’re real, you know, really.”) in the 1740s.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Right,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d they said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but who knows?\u00c2\u00a0 You may want something different two or three years from now?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
*sigh*\u00c2\u00a0 Look.\u00c2\u00a0 We have eenie and meenie and Mama don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want no mo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.\u00c2\u00a0 Okay?<\/p>\n
So they made the appointment.\u00c2\u00a0 It was last Thursday.\u00c2\u00a0 After a week of recovery, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been granted permission to discuss it as long as I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t use photographs.<\/p>\n
What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it been like?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, ladies, in the 5 days following his procedure, my darling husband has made dinner 3 times, cleaned up the house twice, helped out with several loads of laundry, done the dishes repeatedly, and brought home flowers.\u00c2\u00a0 Trade virility for dinner, clean laundry, and flowers?\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, please!<\/p>\n
As for the actual procedure, I wasn’t allowed in the room.\u00c2\u00a0 The report from the nurses was that he spent the whole time chatting and laughing with the doctor.<\/p>\n
Oh, THE DOCTOR!!\u00c2\u00a0 The urologist!\u00c2\u00a0 The guy who does exams and surgeries and consultations on men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most sensitive bits?<\/p>\n
Dr. Woo.<\/p>\n
Really.<\/p>\n
So Dr. Woo worked on Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wee whilst everyone cracked jokes and laughed away.<\/p>\n
I sat in the waiting area, yapping on the phone to my friends who called all morning to check in on Paul.\u00c2\u00a0 The conversations, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m embarrassed to admit, involved a lot of giggling.<\/p>\n
Guys, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sorry to laugh.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that women don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe that this procedure involves discomfort.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But the bottom line is that we child-bearing women don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly feel that this particular duty of yours is all that big of a deal, comparatively speaking.\u00c2\u00a0 We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve spread our legs quite a bit more.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, you have this micro-procedure and then spend a few days sitting comfortably, blissed out on pain meds, with complete control over the remote (for the love, Discovery Channel!\u00c2\u00a0 Do you really need to air Mythbusters 18 hours a day?!)\u00c2\u00a0 By comparison, women go through our reproductive responsibilities with much greater wounds to heal, including whole organs and systems of organs to reshape and reposition.\u00c2\u00a0 PLUS, at the end of it all, there is a tiny person who is either crying, pooping, or clamping down on our sensitive bits at 2 hour intervals 24 hours a day.\u00c2\u00a0 Let us feel like we’re evening out the score a bit by giving us that giggle at your snip-snip.\u00c2\u00a0 (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not heartless, you can still have the remote.)<\/p>\n
But back to Paul.\u00c2\u00a0 He had taken a few valium before reporting to urology but was still nervous.\u00c2\u00a0 The nerves turned him conversational.\u00c2\u00a0 He chatted with the doctor, Doctor Woo \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and oh, the details one can discover!\u00c2\u00a0 The wonders of the scrotal muscle and other random details, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hey, check this out, I know that feels weird in your back\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 if I pull harder, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll make you nauseous!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 They even let Paul see the section of vas removed.\u00c2\u00a0 The whole thing took maybe a half hour.<\/p>\n
When I walked in, Paul wasn’t there.\u00c2\u00a0 There was iodine on the chair and a small, tiny, practically microscopic drop of blood.\u00c2\u00a0 Cauliflower started to grow in my ears.\u00c2\u00a0 My poor Paul!\u00c2\u00a0 Where was he?!\u00c2\u00a0 I stepped to the side to hold onto the counter.<\/p>\n
Then Paul strode in chipper and happy from the bathroom.\u00c2\u00a0 We got our discharge instructions and were on our way.\u00c2\u00a0 He practically waltzed out of the building.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I remained dizzy and had to take a few deep breaths before driving home.<\/p>\n
He made a lot of jokes about needing to buy a sports car immediately upon leaving the hospital.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, his discomfort set in after a few hours.\u00c2\u00a0 It was easily managed with rest and drugs.\u00c2\u00a0 He was a trooper over the next two days, as I had two back-to-back 10+ hour days of workshops \u00e2\u20ac\u201c while he was alone with the kids. \u00c2\u00a0It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now day 10 and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still pretty bruised, particularly along his left side where the vas was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153deep,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d according to Dr. Woo.\u00c2\u00a0 But Paul is definitely healing.\u00c2\u00a0 If he does a lot of walking and bending he gets sore, but feels better in the morning.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 He is concerned about some of the pain that remains and a potential difficulty with healing at the incision site (if the situation doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t change or worsens, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll call the doc back Monday or Tuesday).\u00c2\u00a0 But all in all, it barely put him out of commission (a day or so) and the discomfort, even though it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still hanging around, has not impacted our lives much at all.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not over.\u00c2\u00a0 First, we need to make sure that the whole discomfort thing (identified by Paul as muscle related and extending up into his left side) is a non-issue.\u00c2\u00a0 Second, we need to make sure that he is, in fact, sterile.\u00c2\u00a0 After 15 emissions we have to take in a sample to be sure he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s free of little X and\/or Ys.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 A friend thought that it required ONE HUNDRED emissions before such test, and although Paul perked up a bit at this possibility, I confirmed: 15 is more than enough.<\/p>\n
The most memorable moment for me was when Dr. Woo, kind and gentle Dr. Woo, clapped a hand on Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arm before the procedure and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had it done.\u00c2\u00a0 And I can say, man to man, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no big deal.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
So there you have it.\u00c2\u00a0 Dr. Woo, the Wee specialist, says it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no big deal.\u00c2\u00a0 And from our perspective, at least so far, we have to concur.<\/p>\n
—–
\nUPDATE, Nov. 2nd: Wound opened up to (stop now if you’re already into TMI territory) blood and puss. Paul called the good doc and they called in an antibiotic. No worries still, but at least Paul is feeling less like “man who called wolf” — hopefully incision site will continue to heal now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It took us a year, but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve finally signed on with a new insurance.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We actually managed all this a few months ago, but opted to remain on our current COBRA insurance for a little longer.\u00c2\u00a0 The change date has provided some motivation to attend to some business. It was one of those business needs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[90],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5341"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5345,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5341\/revisions\/5345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}