Well…Nuts
Tuesday, January 28th was a shit day. It started off with the oncologists office calling around 9 a.m. I figured, as far as the MRI and PET Scan went, no new was good news. So the fact that they were calling me meant it wasn’t good news.
“Hello, may I speak to Mr. Ree-mart?” My last name really isn’t that hard to pronounce, was it? Apparently, it was.
I ignored it. “Yes, this is him.”
The voice on the other end told me she had my MRI results and that it showed the tumor in my prostate did not appear to go beyond the walls of the prostate, and that my lymph nodes appeared to be clean. So for a few seconds it appeared to be good news after all.
“But…” of course…a ‘but’, ”They did see something in your scrotum. So I need to set up a scrotal MRI so they can take a better look.
I didn’t say much at first. Several fears had snatched my voice and I didn’t know which question to ask first.
“Hello? Mr. Ree-mart?”
“Yeah,” I sighed trying to verbalize what was in my mind, “I’m here. So, when you say you found ‘something’, what does that mean?”
She explained that they had found a “fluid sack” in my scrotum that probably wasn’t cancer or anything but it still needed more review to identify exactly what it was because if it needed something done medically, it would have to be done before treatment could begin.
“Ok, and what exactly happens in a scrotal ultrasound?” I didn’t even like saying the words.
She paused and seemed to be taken aback by the question.
“Well, are you familiar with an ultrasound?”
“Yes,” I replied a bit annoyed at being condescended to.
“Well they need to perform an ultrasound to get better images of what is in your scrotum.”
I don’t honestly know what I expected her to say. I mean, scrotal ultrasound was pretty descriptive to start with. At this point I was just stalling.
So they needed better images of my nuts. Terrific. I feel like I had swung my junk in front of so many people’s faces in the past few months I could be an honorary member of the Chippendales. Could this get any more embarrassing? I would regret this question later.
Before she hung up I had it scheduled for Friday afternoon and I went back to my workday. Until the phone rang again. This time it was a different number from my urologist’s office.
“Hello, may I speak to Mr. Ree-mert?”
God, give me strength. “Yes, this is Mr. Rye-mert,” I corrected.
She introduced herself and I didn’t pay attention but she went on to say the appointment I needed to have for the placer balls and SpaceoOAR gel put around my prostate had been canceled because the surgery center no longer took my insurance.
“Wait, the place that did my biopsy the last three times doesn’t take Cigna insurance?”
“No, they no longer take that plan.”
Well shit. “Okay, so now what?”
She explained the doctor would be informed of the situation and he would look into finding another facility to perform the procedure.
Well now my heart sank into my stomach. I stared at my desk a few minutes because the last two hours or so had not been great. I stepped away and put the dogs out to get some fresh air. I tried to tell myself that everything would be fine and they would find somewhere else to get it done.
Both of these issus caused several complications. The first was that my doctor intended to use a general anesthetic to get the procedure done, which I preferred. I mean, if they are going to put needles in your taint multiple times, who wouldn’t want to be asleep? I knew my oncologist could do it and was a nationally certified doctor for this procedure, so I would still be in good hands. But he only used a local anesthetic. Not a general.
The second was that if the ultrasound found anything, it had to be taken care of prior to being able to start treatment. So, both of these issues could also cause a delay to the outset of treatment beginning.
I would agonize over these things the next few days, bouncing back and forth between concerns over who would be the next medical professional handling my junk, and when were they going to call me back about having found a place to do the procedure. It was a delightful couple days inside my head.
I don’t know if anyone else gets a mental tug of war when it comes to a medical procedure performed on your privates, but I do. A string of questions started forming. Was it going to be a man or a woman? Would they be rough or gentle? Would my nuts need to get squashed like a woman’s breasts in a mammogram? I suddenly had the mental image of someone pressing the ultrasound down on my nut, squashing it like they were trying to press grapes into wine.
And did it matter if it was a man or a woman? Which would be better? I think for most heterosexual men, at least the ones I talk to, we prefer a woman in situations like this. Not because we expect anything sexual (I knew this didn’t include a happy ending…probably) but in my experience, it’s still more relaxing to have a woman do it. I’m just being honest here.
My wife actually looked at me after I told her and said, “It’s probably going to be a pretty girl. You know almost all of the people who do this are women.”
Well, man or woman, pretty or ugly, it was going to be what it was going to be. And that was…expensive.
So now, in a span of 8 days, I was going to have an MRI, a PET Scan and an ultrasound. And in a couple weeks, I’d be having my first CT Scan in order to give me the tattoos that would help aim the pencil beam. So I was pretty much going to hit the full gamut of bodily imaging scans. And during my biopsies I’m pretty sure they put an ultrasound up my ass to guide the doctor as he jackhammers a needle through my taint into my prostate.
Oh my God! Would they need to do that for the placer balls and SpaceOAR gel, which I would now be awake for? Jesus, take the wheel. I couldn’t even think about that right now. Let’s get back to our regularly scheduled panicked thoughts.
So the blessed day arrived, and beautiful and warm sunny day in Tennessee (I love my home state and mild winters). I drove to Premier Radiology in Mount Juliet and found the office easily, even with my head still full of “what if” thoughts.
I stepped up to the desk and a middle-aged woman with dyed red hair eyed me over the frame of her glasses.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked gruffly.
“Uh, yeah I,,,”
“Name?” she asked even more angrily.
I gave her my name, rank and serial number and waited figuring she would shout out “OH.ARE YOU HERE FOR A SCROTAL ULTRASOUND!!”
Buy she didn’t. Once she got my insurance settled and my information pulled up, she finally took on a softer tone.
“You’re having an ultrasound today?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I decided to be respectful rather than risk the wrath of Nurse Gruffity-gruff.
“And how will we be paying for this today,” Eyes lifting of the frame of her glasses again.
Payment? Nobody said I had to pay today. Aren’t these the kind of things they should tell you ahead of time? And what’s this “we” shit?
“The total is going to be $312.”
Good grief. Well, compared to a PET Scan, that was a bargain.
“I’ll just use my HSA card,” I told her and handed her the card.
Once I signed multiple things and finished up with nurse Gruffity-Gruff, I found a seat in the corner. I was very nervous now, even though I tried not to show it, and hid myself away in the corner. Now, who would be coming out to claim the rights for a personal view of my scrotum?
After a few minutes, I heard my name called. I looked up from my phone and it was a pretty, young blond who greeted me with a pleasant smile. She looked so young I thought she might still be in High school. I figured this was just the girl who would take me back to the room and another person would be there ready to do the ultrasound.
“Mr. Ree-mart?”
Good night Irene. I just smiled back at her and said, “That’s me.”
She replied, “I’m Kelly, the ultrasound trainee.”
Well fuck my life. I knew I shouldn’t have asked if this could get more embarrassing because I knew right then, it did. If she was the trainee, then that meant…
“Hello, I’m Kathy, the ultrasound Tech,” a middle-aged woman in dark blue scrubs informed me, “And Kelly here is the trainee and she’ll be joining us here today.
Great. A fucking audience. Maybe I could have sold tickets or just started a Tiktok live. I mean, what other ways of embarrassing me could they create? Required plaster casts of my junk? Group anal fissure investigation? How about a public semen sample?
“Kelly and I will step out into the hall. Just pull your pants and underwear down to your knees, lay on the table and dover yourself with this blanket. Don’t worry, I’ll knock before we come in.”
Okay, sure. I followed the orders and exposed my genital region. I lay down on the table that was terribly uncomfortable even though it was cushioned, and I covered myself as instructed.
A knock at the door and it opened slightly.
“Mr. Rye-mert, are you ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I told them and lay back and stared at the ceiling.
If felt like they were no sooner in the room when Kathy ripped the blanket off of me like a magician pulling the tablecloth from under a set table, ignominiously exposing my jolly rogers to the world. I continued to stare at the ceiling not wanting to even know if young trainee Kelly was looking at me yet. I was already uncomfortable with my body as it was, I didn’t want to read her eyes as anything judgmental. Why the fuck had they even bothered to cover me with a blanket? I might as well have just laid there half naked to begin with.
Kathy grabbed some kind of large, rectangular paper and laid it so only my balls were now exposed. How comforting.
“So we’ll be doing both sides today. I’m going to cover the ultrasound with a gel and you’ll feel me sliding it slowly over the area. We need to get multiple images from different angles, but it won’t take very long. Just try to lay back and be comfortable.”
Right. With my nuts hanging out in the wind while not one but TWO women analyze my ball sack. Sure. Why not just offer me a snack and a drink while I lay here?
I stared at the ceiling like it was my job to count the perforations in the ceiling tiles. I felt her hand and then the imaging device sliding slowly around my testicle from all angles and stopping in certain areas to get some pictures that were saved on the computer screen they were both stared at.
I received a few instructions as they snapped pictures on the computer like holding my breath (what did that have to do with my nut sack?) and asking me to tighten up like was doing a sit-up. I could just hear my body laughing now. Sit-up? All this guy ever does is sit. Well, shut-up, body. I knew what I was doing. And I did tighten my flabs as much as I could, but I still wonder if they noticed.
lAfter about 15 minutes and multiple applications of whatever the gel was, Kathy took the equipment off and stood up.
“Is it ok if Kelly does the other side? She’s a trainee and she needs the experience.”
“Sure,” I shrugged, “Why not?”
Why not invite some people in from the lobby to help? I could have possibly sold tickets. Lord knows I could use the money. Perhaps I’d start using these opportunities to create an OnlyFans.
Kelly looked slightly uncomfortable as she took the seat and I didn’t blame her one bit. I had to wonder if this was a situation she had been told could even happen, or if, right now, she was just totally re-thinking her life.
Now her hand slid the gel-slathered device over “the other side” and they both stared at the screen. Occasionally Kathy would provide Kelly with some mumbled help or instructions and Kelly would occasionally ask a question. At one point she went far higher on my scrotum then Kathy had and I hope I hid my surprise. Shortly after that she held the device on my left testicle and asked Kathy how she should get a certain image. Kathy tried to instruct her verbally, but that didn’t help.
“No,” she told Kelly, “Here, let me help you.”
And Kathy leaned over the table and put her hand on my junk, too. Now I suddenly has two women sliding their hands over my scrotum at the same time, Wow, my first threesome and it was nothing like I had ever hoped or dreamed.
I closed my eyes and reminded myself to breath and that it would soon all be over. And thankfully it was. Kelly took the device and started to clean it with a paper towel.
“Okay, Mr. Ree-mert, we’re all done. We’ll step outside and let you clean up. Just come on out whenever you’re done. There’s an extra towel there if you need it.”
“Thanks,” I murmured as I started to rise. And now I felt the gel on me, and it was everywhere like i just left a Diddy party. It was so slopped across my midsection and even my legs that I couldn’t believe it. How had this stuff made such a mess. It was all the way down to my calves and areas they hadn’t even touched. Good lord, what a mess.
Well after what the two ladies probably thought was a long time, I decided I was clean enough and tried to courteously set the two towels on a large bin labeled “Dirty Linens” and I headed out the door.
On my way out Kathy informed me a radiologist would need to look at the images so I wouldn’t hear anything for several days. I felt some urgency for getting it done so I could finally get some treatment start days set up, I hoped it wasn’t going to be too long before we heard something back..
After sitting in my van for a few minutes trying to gather my thoughts, I headed to my friend Paul’s house to drop something off for him. As soon as I pulled in the driveway, my phone rang and it was the scheduler for my urologist’s office. Great, now what?
“Hello Mr. Ree-Mert, it’s Chanelle with Dr. Sulek’s office. I was calling you about your SpaceOAR appointment.”
“Yeah, they called me last week and told me that was canceled,” I told her.
She paused a second and kind of barked, “Well, it’s not. They never should have said that to you. They should have asked me.”
Well why are you angry at me? I thought but kept it to myself, “Ok, so what does that mean?”
Her voice softened, “Well, we are still on for the 18th at the same building, you’ll just be going to the other side. The treatment side.”
Okay, well that was good. It seemed that one thing was going my way today.
“But…”
Oh my God, not again.
“You won’t be receiving a general anesthetic on that side any more. We can only give you a strong gas. You don’t have C.O.P.D. do you?”
I had to get over my initial shock. The whole reason I wanted to have Dr. Sulek do it is because I would be completely knocked out. Now she was telling me that while they were inject gold placer balls into my prostate and SpaceOAR gel around it, I would be awake for the whole thing!
“Well,” I stammered, “No, I don’t but what kind of anesthetic is it?”
I’ll be honest, I didn’t hear the exact name of the gas but it wasn’t nitrous oxide. She said it was something stronger.
“And trust me, I promise you won’t feel a thing.”
I had heard those words before and they were almost always lies.
“Really? I hope not.”
“You won’t. I promise.”
I shook my head angrly and surrendered, “Well, I don’t have a choice, so I guess I’ll see you on the 18th.”
“Ok, thank you Mr. Ree-mert. I’ll call you early next week with more instructions on what’s going to happen that day.”
“Okay,” was all I could muster and I hung up. I dropped the item off at Paul’s house and started the drive home. But now I felt violated from the procedure and angry at knowing that now I would be wide awake for the procedure with Dr. Sulek and I really felt like I needed a drink. I cut through my home city and drove to Jonathan’s Bar and Grille, one of my favorite watering holes. I figured a few beers and gathering my thoughts and emotions on what had been a really weird day was truly in order. Plus in exactly one week I would be turning 58. So as we stormed towards treatment I quite literally wasn’t getting any younger.
What a day and what a week it had been. This adventure sure presented new obstacles every week, but that couldn’t continue, could it? I’ll probably regret asking that questions, too.
Well, another hurdle crossed and several more to go. Slow and steady wins the race.