Everything Changes

say something about there being no problems, only opportunities, but I walk out of the room before he can finish. I can hear him shouting angrily after me as I run down the hall, and I know I should have stayed, but I’m thinking that life is just too damn short to listen to any more of this crap.

Chapter 14
    Dr. Sanderson holds up something that looks like a miniature plumber’s snake and describes the horrific procedure he’s about to perform. “It’s called a cystoscopy,” he says. “Basically, we enter the bladder through the urethra, and the camera here gives us a full view of what’s going on in there.”
    I’m having trouble paying attention, because at the moment a young, dark-haired Hispanic woman is cradling my penis in her latex-gloved hands. She begins slathering something onto it, pulling slightly on me as she does so, and I am terrified at the possibility of an erection. If it can happen on the subway, or sitting innocently at my desk, why not here? I’m reclining on an examination table, legs splayed, completely naked but for the flimsy gown the physician’s assistant handed me right before she began handling me. She is deft and professional, and I wonder what impact, if any, spending her days handling limp, cowering penises might have on her sex life.
Get that thing away from me, honey. I’ve had quite enough today, thank you very much!
    “That’s a topical anesthetic,” Dr. Sanderson continues. “Once it takes effect, Camille will administer a local and we’ll do the procedure.” He looks at me. “Are you feeling okay?”
    “I usually get kissed first,” I joke lamely.
    Camille’s smirk says tell me one I haven’t heard.
    Only once I’ve been laid fully back with my knees spread does it sink in that the cystoscope will be inserted into my tiniest of holes. A low terror starts to build in me, and I begin to tremble involuntarily. “Don’t worry,” Camille tells me unconcernedly. “You’ll barely feel it,” which is easy for her to say, since it’s not her genitals into which she’s poised to plunge a nasty-looking metallic syringe the length of a small baseball bat.
    Dr. Sanderson finally steps in, and I lay my head back and squeeze my eyes shut. “I’ll need you to relax,” he says. If so, he’s in for a disappointment. “Try to release your muscles, like you do when you urinate,” he tells me. I take some deep breaths and suddenly feel a hot pinch. “Good,” says the doctor. “We’re in.” My eyes remain resolutely shut. I am firmly committed to not seeing what’s happening below. It’s bad enough just hearing the sounds of his manipulations as he adjusts the cystoscope and flips on the TV monitor.
    “I feel like I have to urinate,” I say after a few minutes.
    “I’m filling your bladder with water,” he informs me. “I need to expand your bladder wall so that I can see everything.”
    “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to hold it,” I say.
    “Try,” he advises me. “It’ll only be for a little while.”
    After a few minutes, Dr. Sanderson nudges my leg and tells me to open my eyes. At some point while my eyes were closed, Camille took her leave, and it is now just the doctor and me. I become conscious of a puddle forming on the protective paper beneath me on the table. “Don’t worry about that,” the doctor says. “It’s just excess water.”
    I have a glimpse into the continuous indignities of long-term medical care, the exposure, the clinical manipulation of your most intimate parts, the private by-products and secretions that will pour out, uninvited, for all to see. And all the while, the doctor looming above, unhurriedly doing his work, waiting until the last possible instant to share any findings with you.
    “So,” I say. “What do you see?”
    Dr. Sanderson frowns. “Hard to say,” he says. “There’s definitely a small mass there, just off the bladder wall. I’d be surprised if it’s cancerous, but still . . . We’ll do a biopsy, just to rule it out.”
    And even though I’d been steeling myself for continued bad news, I realize at this moment that for the most part I hadn’t really bought into the possibility. But now he’s used the words “mass” and “biopsy,” and I can feel an icy chill expanding upward from my hyper-clenched bowels. On the bright side, at least it’s too late for me to wet myself.
    I clear my throat. “When you say you want to rule it out, do you mean that in a ‘we’re living