In another of his recent columns, I’m pretty sure that Dave Barry is the first person to have analogized a prostate exam with accessing Tallahassee from a backroad in Alabama.
There are times when it’s not easy to be a male. I experienced one of these times a few days ago when, within a span of 20 minutes, three different people, two of whom I had not previously met and one of whom was a member of a completely different biological sex, asked me to lower my pants so they could handle parts of my body that I will refer to here, out of respect for their privacy, as my festicles (not their real name).This happened at the office of my urologist. Like many older men, I see a urologist regularly, and I believe I speak for all of these men when I make the following urgent plea to the urology community: For the love of God, please find a way to get to the prostate gland other than the way you’re getting to it now.
When you visit your urologist, he or she always examines your prostate, which is a tricky procedure because of where it’s located. If we envision the male reproductive system as a map of Florida, the prostate would be Tallahassee. The problem is, there is no easy way to get to Tallahassee. So the current procedure is for the urologist to approach it via the back road from Alabama.
This means that the prostate examination is quite unpleasant for everyone involved.
Q. How unpleasant is it?
A. When it’s about to happen, both you and the urologist are quietly hoping for a direct meteor strike.
Like most politicians, SMOD talks a great game, but he’s never around when you actually need him.