there was a three-week span late last year when i thought i was about to die. like i was seriously fearful. suddenly i was in these kind of fugue states. some mornings they were so bad, when walking anthony to school i had these bouts of vertigo and started actually veering like i was about to fall. and through this, admittedly terrifying time, i did what most men do when confronted with scary hea...

alex calls advil, anvil.

and on alex, anvil shows its curative effects in less than 30 seconds.

marty and i are in active debate if he inherited this placebo-susceptibility from her or from me.

thus far, a case could be made in either direction.

the brother of a girl i know was in a car accident. his injuries proved quite severe, namely below the waist damaging a hip and mangling one of his feet. after a few days observation his doctors presented his options in regard to his pulverized foot:

1. replace the heel and rebuild the foot as best as able. this would be followed by a year, and probably more, of intense therapy. in the end, the procedures and subsequent therapies might prove a failure.
2. or, amputate the foot and learn how to use a prosthetic device. end to end this would take less than a year and almost certainly have a more positive outcome.

what would you choose?

marty's toe continues to be a foul and wretched mess. that is i think it does as i'm still unable to look at it. i do want to still love her when this is all over in thirty six months after she's shed the busted toenail, has grown a new one and her toe returns to a proper shade of human color.

if you're wondering if i knew when my well of empathy ran dry, i did. it occurred the day after when we were eating dinner on the porch and she propped the throbbing nub up on the railing, sans sock, while she ate. i kept shifting in my chair looking for a position where the thrashed toe wasn't in my sight-line, but human peripheral vision rocks and you can kinda see everywhere that's not behind you and i'm not a big enough ass to, like, turn away completely. and like they say about car wrecks and our flawed human nature, my eye kept being drawn to her deformed digit. i tried not to say anything but without checking with my mature side, a runner got by the checkpoint and blurted out, "so, does it hurt to wear a sock?"

and that, for the record, is the moment my well of empathy ran dry.

and for any worrying about marty's delicate disposition, she's plenty numb to her husband's squeamish insensitivity which can be seen in her reply, "no, i don't need a sock. i'm good. but thanks."

p.s. x-ray's showed the toe thankfully wasn't broken.

p.s.s. the athletic director at marty's school drained the toe on the second day with some medieval sounding contraption that burned a hole in the nail so the blood (and stuff) could be released, taking the pressure off the nail. he told her if she'd come sooner, he might have been able to save the nail. her description of the procedure for-sure tested my thirty-plus year puke-free streak.

our refrigerator is on the fritz (running too cold) and a milk bottle exploded in the night last week. sunday night, after i had gone to bed, marty emptied the fridge to finish cleaning out the spilled remnants. when done, and putting everything back she dropped a glass shelf on her left big toe which was, at the moment, as naked and vulnerable as a soft nubbin of human flesh could possibly be.

her writhings and moanings woke me sometime in the four o'clock hour. as i learned of what happened and got up to help, she first asked for a sock knowing enough to not let me see the carnage else i'd pass out, fall into our dresser and gash my temple open and then we'd have double the problems. while she wrestled with the sock, i readied a fresh ice pack for her. after getting her foot elevated and settled, i went to my office and returned with two of the pain pills i'd recently been given for my separated shoulder and placed them in her hand. when she asked what they were, i replied, "they're for pain. they work really well but you should know you probably won't be able to get an erection while you're on them."

would you believe, she seemed far less wary of that side-effect that i was?

on a saturday night a few weeks back, we had a beautiful snow fall through the night.

on sunday, i built an igloo with anthony (one big enough for him to climb into) and then went sledding with alex (where we'd race down the hills and crash into each other if able).

on monday, i consumed an inordinate amount of ibuprofen.

i really wish they'd work on a drip mechanism i could clip into at work so i wouldn't have to groan each time i got up to get more pills.

a few years ago i made the switch from being a stay-up-late guy to a get-up-early guy. i lucked into this being a really fortunate life-change because when marty went back to work, my days, quite abruptly, needed to begin at 6:30 am. surprisingly, one of the hardest facets of this hours transition dealt with my exercise. for about twenty years, i've done distance biking and more than ninety five percent of those rides, rides that were between twenty and forty miles, happened in the night, anywhere between ten p.m. and 2 a.m. there are many reasons i prefer biking at night but obviously i couldn't roll in from a bike ride at one in the morning, wash up, wind down, sack out and get enough sleep in before a six thirty alarm chimed. so, no more night rides which means i have to do my sweating in the morning.

because i've always exercised at night, a well published bit of medical knowledge never concerned me. i've read multiple times that more heart attacks happen in the morning hours than in the after lunch window. now, as i would pump and strain on my stationary trainer in the basement twenty minutes out of bed (no time for distance rides before work), this medical tidbit would appear and take a leisurely stroll around my mind while i logged my intervals. this repeated finding proved so convincing in fact, that there were times i'd back off my level of effort now and again out of fear of over-taxing my pre-coffee ticker.

one morning after one of these haunted workouts, i stood in the kitchen still shiny with sweat and in my biking bibs while the boys ate breakfast. i found myself imagining the scene of alex or anthony coming upon me collapsed by my bike. i wondered what they'd do, how they'd respond. so, while they ate their muffins and yogurt i asked them what they would do if they found me downstairs in the morning and i looked to be sleeping but they couldn't wake me up. i asked anthony to answer first.

ANTHONY (6)
well, i'd tell you to wake up and if that didn't work i'd jump on your head.

TROY
jump on my head???

ANTHONY
yes. jump on your head. you said you wanted me to get you up didn't you? and if that didn't wake you up i'd call the hospital.

TROY
how would you call the hospital. what numbers would you push.

ANTHONY
911

TROY
and what would you tell them?

ANTHONY
i'd say you are sleeping and i jumped on your head but you still didn't wake up.

TROY
and where would you tell them to come?

ANTHONY
i'd tell them to come to my house.

TROY
do you know where you live? what street?

ANTHONY
yes. (says street).

TROY
what about the house numbers?

ANTHONY
uhhhm. (thinks for a moment). i would go out the front door and look at the numbers on the front of the house.

TROY
nice anthony. good answer. i think i'd have a sportin chance if you did all that. now how about you alex? what would you do?

ALEX (9)
i'd try to wake you up. if i couldn't i'd slap you. if i still couldn't get you awake then i'd do VCR on you. and if that didn't work i'd call 911.

TROY
wow. very nice answer. although i might suggest calling 911 before starting your VCR on me.

i must say i was oddly relieved to hear how my fellas would react. that said, let us hope that's the last time they ever have to visit the matter.

a relative recently experienced a cardiac event which resulted in a stint being installed near his heart and an honest talking to from a doctor about his lifestyle. at rehab, he asked about success rates for this particular procedure and recovery. the candid answer: over half the people who sat in his chair with his diagnosis were dead within a year. in the subsequent weeks he quit smoking, dramatically changed his diet (losing 25 pounds in less than two months), and exercised with a religious dedication. marty asked how hard it was to make so many lifestyle changes at once, he replied that it wasn't hard at all. in fact every decision proved quite simple, "if i eat pizza, i die. if i don't exercise, i die. if i do any of the things i did before, i die. so no it's not hard. it's not hard at all. it's most easy."

life was humming along like a newly installed operating system. my project work was on schedule. i was well-rested. i actually saw days, a few of them even, where my daily goals were met and i had an hour, a free hour on my hands. in these astonishingly rare moments, i slid my book from the shelf and sank into a couch corner for a guilt free hour of recreational reading. through all of my systems and processes, these are the moments i'm so effortfully chasing.

getting in this steady clip was extra important because i was due to have knee surgery the following week and would be sidelined—and drugged—for a day or two. i worked hard to enter this planned downtime in a sane, comfortable mindset. then with surgery six days out, my office phone rang. it was worded as a professional favor but proved to be more of an emergency. my next five days (a saturday and sunday included) were completely fouled. it was like a monsoon destroyed my picked up house and manicured lawn. any pre-existing order was devastated.

the end came at 3pm the day before my surgery. at 1pm this same day my doctor's office called and said they had to move my slot from 2pm to 6am. at first i was elated because this took my fasting-period from fourteen hours to a mere seven. child's play. but when i called marty with the change i could see her body sag over the phone as she said, "but i had all the kids covered for 2pm. how am i supposed to get someone at five in the morning?" oh. yes. that.

i'll skip over the four hours marty spent scrambling for a solution and just move to what she came up with. a neighbor i work with had told marty of a service we have through our employer benefits. it's essentially subsidized, emergent care for children and aging parents. the neighbor had expressed great satisfaction with this service. marty called me and told me to to call them to set up an account. so at 5:30pm i registered with this company. at 6pm marty called them and described our 5am need, now a mere eleven hours away. they said they were on it and we would hear back by 10pm.

at 9:30 i was certain we were going to get the "sorry we tried but we just didn't have enough notice" call. instead the phone rang an 9:45. a confident voice introduced herself as emily and said she would be watching our children in the morning. after my expressions of relief, she went on to ask a series of questions so cogent, i started taking notes for future reference. pets. allergies. name of the kids' school. neighbors names. my destroyed house was beginning to look much better. and the next morning this girl, emily, arrived on the dot. she even cleaned the breakfast dishes, put away the couch that marty had pulled out for her to sleep on until the kids woke up, and left us a debrief on the backside of the note marty left her.

oh, and one thing i didn't mention in all of this is that during the initial bum-rush of mayhem, our refrigerator stopped worked (and would be in that non-working state for eleven days.)

oh, and one other thing. the service we were so happy with is called bright horizons and if you have access/ability to use them, i'd recommend them. highly.

to continue health week here at dearmitt dot com, i have another morsel to share. i'm always listening out for people who have personal experience and insights about prostate matters. this is a dark tunnel all men who live long enough will one day be ushered into, and there seems to be a bit of flux in the knowledge at hand.

after telling my new hair guy, jerry, about my pending knee work i asked if he ever had any surgeries. dismissively he said, "nah. i just had my prostate out a few years back." as the word 'prostate' got floated out there, the guy in my head responsible for watching for things i care about gave my brain a hard nudge and told it, sharply, to get off its ass. i was ravenous. how old was he when it started? how was it detected? how hard were the decisions? what was the aftermath? i'm most interested in that last question as i hear conflicting things about periods and levels of recovery.

many of jerry's (and yes, i've noted that my new hair guy's name is a rhymer (how anfer would say it) with the infamous and ever-missed larry) stories begin, "well, i have this customer who is a fill in the needed occupation so i asked him...". when his prostate journey began, one of his customers told him to go check out this new facility in the county. the customer described it as not much more than a prostate chop shop. it's all they did, and per jerry, they did a lot of it. from the crack of dawn to the dip of dusk, this well-oiled, or perhaps vaselined, operation worked until their buckets spilled over with the fouled or suspect organs. what was special about this place was they used these fancy new machines, called a da vinci machine, designed to do nothing but cull prostates from paying customers. the machine looks like a five legged spider, hovers over a sleeping patient and is controlled by a doc sitting twenty feet away. when people who have used this new system compare notes with people who used old-school methods, it is a hands down drubbing (in favor of the inventor's namesake).

the mechanized procedure is more officially termed a da vinci prostatectomy (more). when i told marty about it, she explained the reason it may do better than than conventional means is that when a human works on you, they have to make room for their hands to manuever so end up disrupting and thus damaging a lot more healthy tissue than the robotic arms which could burrow through the sensitive tissue, excise the organ and back out leaving nary a trace of its adventure. as my hair guy said, he had friends who were hospitalized for ten days and still ginger after six weeks from the traditional method, and he, my hair guy, was in and out in thirty six hours and back cutting hair in two weeks (albeit with the occasional break).

i asked jerry for any final advice he'd give to someone with this in their future. at this question he lowered his scissors, moved into my view, and with animated hand gestures told of another patient who asked the same question weeks before getting the procedure. jerry said, "i told him one thing ... get a bucket." he elaborated that after the procedure they catheterize you (serious bitch he adds) and give you this bag to carry around. he said he tried using the velco calf connectors and even wearing cargo-pocketed pants but in the end just ended up going into the basement and grabbing a bucket, throwing the always getting fuller bag in and just plodded around the house carrying his handled-bucket with him. unless he had to go out in public, which he wasn't in much mood for, he didn't mess with any of those ill-conceived antics. regarding what his buddy thought of his advice. since then any of his friends who say they're getting the prostate business, shortly before their procedure he appears before their door and gives them a gift: a shiny new bucket with a christmas bow on it.

i think my reason for talking so much about health the last few days (mon, tue) is i had knee surgery yesterday. same knee as before but a far less intense procedure. i tweaked it playing tennis about a month back. the swelling and discomfort were enough to send me back to my knee guy. after an exam, x-ray, and mri, they discovered a sizable loose-body of cartilage floating around. this whimsical shard was the source of much of my discomfort as it repeatedly parked itself in places the rest of my knee did not expect such a particle to be double-parked (inconsiderate ass that it, the floater, is).

during the pre-op prep and before they allowed marty back to wait with me, the nurse said, "i'm required by law to ask you this: do you have a safe place to go home to after you are discharged?" a crazed array of images—some of bella, some of anthony, some of marty, and NONE of aleo—ran through my head. this was the only answer i paused on. in fact i paused so long, the woman looked away from the computer screen to glance at me, mildly annoyed. i smiled and said, no i had a lovely and colorful home to return to.

later, after marty joined me, the anaesthesia guy explained the "cocktail" he had planned. one of the courses included what he called an "animal-grade amnesia" solution which would make me forget anything that happened after he administered it and before he knocked me out. after he left, marty and i debated if he really used the term animal-grade or if he said something else that just sounded like "animal-grade".

when they announced it was time, marty gave me a kiss, said she loved me and asked me not to die. as my bed made its wheeled journey towards the operating room, i had the following conversation with the anaesthesia guy who was pushing the bed and positioned just behind me, out of sight:

TROY
they knocked me out sooner last time and i didn't remember going down this hall.

ANAESTHESIA GUY
nah, it's the same. you will forget this little trip when you wake up.

TROY
i won't forget. i'm remembering it right now.

ANAESTHESIA GUY (jokingly)
it's smart to not believe the professional who does this everyday.

TROY
wait. earlier did you say you were going to give me an animal grade amnesiac?

ANAESTHESIA GUY
i did.

TROY
and that's why i won't remember?

ANAESTHESIA GUY
yes.

TROY
my wife didn't believe that's what you said.

ANAESTHESIA GUY
i seem to be batting a thousand in your house.

TROY
for the record, i believed you about the animal grade amnesia-juice.

ANAESTHESIA GUY
but not the memory stuff.

TROY
uhh. yeah.

ANAESTHESIA GUY
i'd recommend trusting the guy with his fingers on the plungers.

while i do want to believe him, i obviously remembered this exchange down the hallway as it is eight hours later and i'm typing it up for your enjoyment. although i will say the guy put me out moments after that exchange. now talk about your cherry job perks, being able to silence anyone you find irksome due to their disagreeing personalities.

as i write this, the jaggy bit of flotsam is no longer flitting about my knee joint. and after a bit of rest i'm back to rehab then off to be fitted for a fancy new-age leg brace meant to reduce friction-based injuries from impact or cut-based activities. you'll note, the super-doc nabbed the floater out but didn't do anything about the hole it had occupied. we're going to try the brace but are possibly in for something a touch more intense down the line (e.g. cartilage grafts or, get this, a fitted cadaver plug).

another detail for the record, leading up to my procedure three years ago, my biggest worry was dying during the procedure. as i hadn't been under full anaesthesia for twenty years, i feared i may prove allergic to what are surely new medications or possibly i would learn some part of my body (e.g. heart, lungs) was not what it once was and one of them might go sideways in some unexpected manner. obviously, none of the scenarios occurred. i didn't even suffer from the threat of post-operative puking which they warned us about (and as you would expect, i warned them that they were toying with a thirty year vomit-free run). this time, my largest anxiety before they put my down was peeing during the procedure ... or worse. while some folks look to replace disproven irrational/paranoid arguments with healthier notions, i view the irrational medium as something to be specialized in, surprising any still willing to listen with my unprecedented ability to swap paranoid and silly beliefs with even more confused and sad ones. call it a hobby of sorts.

i'd be remiss to not name the largest victim of this injury. and it is surprisingly not marty. while she obviously shoulders a tremendous uptick in work and hassle, the biggest loser this time is my ski mancation with bookguy. and the most scandalous part of it all is weeks before last year's outing, bookguy took a tumble on his bike (surely doing something ill-advised) and nixed our 2011 boondoogle. this means we're now in a two year funk due to our weekend-warrior mentalities. after this year's news broke, we made a gentleman's agreement to embargo ourselves from taxing physical endeavors in the months leading up to our ski date. because while age may not make for more resilient bodies, it should at least produce minds that are, if nothing else, significantly wiser. if we can't learn to pick that meat from the bone, aging is sure to be an arduous and unforgiving bitch.

( please note, this post was crafted under the influence of the miracle drug vicodan to which any spikes in mis-spellings, confusion or creativity may be attributed. )

we went camping over the weekend. when we came home anthony started complaining that his eye hurt. marty looked at it but couldn't see anything. he continued to get more agitated until finally holding his eye closed with his hand for the rest of the evening. both marty and i would check on him after he'd been alone for a bit wondering if he was exaggerating his state but every time we looked in on him, he was playing with one hand and holding his eye closed with the other.

in the morning marty took him to our eye doctor. after examining him the doctor confirmed that his eyeball had been scratched. he leaned into anthony and asked him if he knew what had happened to his eye. anthony said that an invisible baby dolphin jumped at his face and scratched his eye with its invisible tail. fortunately there seems to be an antibiotic for that.

yesterday i had a dental cleaning at 9am and my annual physical at 11am. i was for sure poked and prodded enough for two tuesday mornings.

for those wondering if the one-way sign staked by my rectum is still standing, it is. the streak survives, assuredly thanks to an uber-low psa count in my last blood work. although, my doc hinted that i should prepare myself because the sign's days are numbered. he even had the audacity to say the c-word ... colonoscopy ... which definitely makes a gloved pointer finger seem quite innocuous. and once you get into colonoscopy country i think the DO NOT ENTER sign gets replaced with a VISITORS WELCOME sign and tour bus parking lines painted around the entrance.

so ... rectal researchers (e.g. invaders, divers, sightseers, medical enthusiasts) of the world, i implore you to get your collective act together because it looks like you've got two, maybe three years to improve your diagnostic weapons to achieve my dream of you being able to tell me the state of my prostrate and rectal cavity (nice!) from the other side of the room ... and while i still have my pants on. as for the colonoscopy, well they use big drugs for that. they might just need to tackle me at work and start the drip there.

i'd be willing to pay extra for that.

if you ever wondered how skittish marty is about letting one get by the goalie allowing for an accidental/unexpected pregnancy, your curiosity would have been well satisfied when alex mistook her birth control patch for a big-ass band-aid* and motioned towards it, offering to take it off for her. the way marty jumped and twisted away you would have thought alex was about to mistakingly pull the pin from a live grenade, which when you consider spending all day, every day keeping anthony alive, a pin-less hand grenade may be an astute and reasonable comparison.

* since the patch is larger than a conventional band-aid and was placed on her ass, calling it a big-ass band-aid was quite perfectly perfect. but please don't mistake this as me saying it was a band-aid on a big-ass which i think would be written as a big ass band-aid. perhaps grammar-police dave can set me straight because if i botch that and people misinterpret my message, the need for birth control in my home could become a moot point.

i must apologize for not being more involved or entertaining since returning from my sabbatical but i've been distracted. as for what has caught my eye it would be my new knee. this would be the knee which received reconstructive surgery in april of 2008. while the full rehab took better than a year to complete, the restoration of my knee was in a word complete, completely beautiful. completely restorative. simply complete.

when i first met with my super-surgeon and he recommended the reconstructive course of action, i asked him to guess my rate of performance after going through with the procedure, and would my knee perform at, say, 50%, 80% or better. he looked at my like i had asked him if we would be sleeping together before or after the surgery. after shaking the ludicrousness of my question off he said, without pause, "your recovery will be 100%. it will be like your knee was never injured. your rehabilitated knee will out-perform your knee that was never injured." i then asked him what other parts of my body he could augment similarly.

before my surgery if i played 1 hour of tennis, while wearing a brace, it would be three days before i could climb a flight of stairs or get out of a chair without wincing. and i would have to wait at least a week before even considering going out on the tennis court again. this ongoing debilitation was largely what sent me shopping for a doctor in the first place. now with my fully rehabilitated knee my weeks look much different. tuesday night i did an intense, thirty-minute, interval routine on my bike trainer. wednesday night i played two break-free (and brace-free!) hours of tennis with e-love. and last night, thursday, i biked 25 hilly miles maintaining a 14mph average speed. and in the last few weeks, i'm down more than a full belt-loop.

so, i'm sure you can appreciate this infatuation with my new body. i mean it's not like i sit up at night rubbing on my knee and cooing at it softly. i can do that during the day at work, i'm too busy having fun with my knee out and about at night.

thanks in advance for your understanding.

i went to my doctor yesterday. it was my first post 40 visit. i told marty i'd go. i told myself i'd go. i made the appointment in a moment of conviction. i steeled myself for the day. i promised myself i wouldn't balk. or argue. my doctor of sixteen years walked in and sat down. he asked lots of questions about the last three plus years since he'd seen me. he reviewed my bloodwork in detail. he had me take my shirt off and lie back on the waxy paper. he poked and prodded me above the waist for a bit. he then handed me my shirt back, said everything looked good and to keep doing what i was doing. then he shook my hand and left.

i think it's fair to say that worrying about a digital prostate exam has probably taken more days off my life than an unhealthy prostate ever would. it looks like i can breathe easy for one more year. i'm sure you're as relieved as i am.

between the ages of 25 and 35 i was a full-on hypochondriac. any persistent discomfiture would send me to my doctor complaining of shortness of breath, bloated lymph nodes or persistent fatigue. my doc was a patient and kind listener to my woes until one day, visibly frustrated at my ongoing-angst, he told me that the human body is an amazing structure, the most amazing thing any of us will ever see, and it can shoulder the most ridiculous sorts of abuse for many years before it begins to show signs of wear. he said at my rate of malfeasance i wouldn't experience overt signs of physical debilitation until i was forty and that before turning forty all my pieces and parts would continue to operate as advertised. you know what ... he was right. and seeing what has happened in just the last few months, i've constructed the below model for your own benefit and edification.

i would liken a pre-thirty year old body to silly putty. you can do the stupidest of things to that flesh colored nubbin and it bounces back each and every time proving just as resilient as the day you first took it out of its two-tone egg.

i would like a thirties body to play-doh. still lots of fun and able to do plenty of neat tricks but not quite the gamer the silly putty was. play-doh isn't going to recover from being run over by mom's car tire in the driveway nearly as well as its near cousin, putty, is.

now a forties body, and i'm quite new at this, but a forties body i would liken to day-old play-doh. you know the play-doh that got left on the kitchen table overnight, taken for granted, forgotten. we all know, too well, no matter how much you re-work it in the palms of your hands or how many drops of water you secret into its folds, the stiff cudgel of doh is never as pliable, moist or sweet smelling as it was before the trespass.

the moral of the story is, take care of your play-doh today because you do reach a point where there's no getting it back tomorrow. and if that hasn't got your attention, i'm noticing i suddenly have a lazy nipple. did you even know such a thing was possible? one droopy nipple! i gotta admit, it wasn't anywhere on my radar.

from the time i was 27 to 37 i went to the doctor once to twice a year. usually it was for a sinus infection or chest congestion that wasn't going away fast enough. the last time i went to the doctor it was for a ruptured bursa (sp) sack in my knee, an injury i obtained while chasing my kids on the skater ramps at city museum. i waited six weeks before seeing my doctor. i thought the knee would have cleared up given that much time and when it didn't i went in. my doc quickly diagnosed the problem and said that sort of injury takes 6-8 weeks to heal. after serving this diagnosis he started flipping through my chart and asked how old i was. i could tell by the tenor of his voice that he had bad things in mind and i quickly and sternly replied that i was not yet that old. sensing my tone he said i was coming due. next time i said. next time he said. yes, next time i repeated. what i knew and what he did not know was that there would not be a next time.

i've talked about this topic before but i bring it up for two reasons. first, and something i didn't realize until recently, since my doctor threatened me with a gloved and Vaselined playdate i haven't had a day of illness that has required the help of special medicine or professional care. and it's not that i've needed it but have just avoided going in. it just hasn't come to that. and secondly, a doctor i know recently confided to me that there is currently a debate among the medical community on the need or efficacy of this procedure. i happen to know a little bit about another such debate and feel that it is only prudent of me to conduct some research into this matter before allowing additional psychological damage be done to my body or person. i mean, now that i have brought two beautifully uncircumcised boys into this razor-happy society, i've been in the market for a new social-ill to give time to. i think we may have a player.

and when marty asks what i'm waiting for i tell her i'm waiting for technology that will tell them what they need to know while sitting on the other side of the room. when she says that that ain't gonna happen quick enough i tell her i'm then waiting for the spousal training program where she can be trained on what to look for. i'd surely be willing to conduct her breast exams in return. much more than just preventative health care would come from such an insightful and empathetic program.

This guy goes to the doctor to get his first prostate exam. The doc puts on his glove and sticks his fingers in to take a look. After awhile he says,

"Son, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is you don't have prostate cancer!"

The guy says "So whats the bad news?"

Doc tells him, "You'll have to stop masturbating."

"Why?" the guy asks.

Doc says, "Because it's making me nervous!"

via big ed

i want you to push down through your heel and squeeze your thigh. then flex your right butt muscle. as you lift the tenseness should begin in your calf, move through your thigh and then to your lower buttock. you want to pinch and hold that muscle for about five seconds, lower down slowly and then do it again.

these are the sort of instructions i get at rehab. at the end of such an outpouring i just stand, staring blankly at the woman. i want to ask her if all her counseling will be in portuguese. first off, i've never before contemplated the laws of my body's motion. historically, i just look where i want to go and my body goes there. easy-cheesy. secondly, i'm entirely unable to ambulate and think of that many things at the same time. the dopa-dopa-doh soundtrack they routinely play inside homer simpson's mind is not a farce. men wrote that. they know. and lastly, even though i have a wonderfully (to some) bulbous and fleshy ass, there doesn't seem to be any functional muscles in there. the woman told my to tighten my right cheek. i tried and couldn't and told her as much. she responded by repeating the instruction this time placing her hand on the upper part of my backside to feel for herself. i tried again and she, like me, felt nothing. she looked at me and told me to try it. i said i just did. she told me to do it again. i did it again. nothing. frustrated and perplexed she tells me i'll have to work on that. as far as i can tell there's nothing to work on. i have no ass muscles, just juicy, delicious rumpmeat that make it impossible for me to wear anything made by levis. i tried explaining that such beauty rarely coincides with functional use. you get one or the other but not both. at this point she turned from me and scribbled something in my chart. i didn't see what it was but i'm thinking it wasn't a notation of her agreement.

but how cool would it be if that is what she wrote down.

upon learning that i had photographs of my surgery, a good and dear friend of mine succintly told me that he was boycotting my site until i made them available for viewing. this does seem to be my week for getting slapped about content wise. i've been planning on sharing them but have only recently become mobile enough to work at my desk and reach my scanner. but i am now able and ready to freak you all out. actually, aside from one pic, they're more awe-inspiring than gag-reflex inducing. but, to be kind, i'm hiding them and you have to click to expose each one. additionally, i'm including a gore-meter with each set so you can control your experience, seeing as much or as little of my insides as you'd like. something interesting to note is all of these pictures were taken underwater because that's just how they roll these days. to achieve this they put a turniquit above and below my knee, and then pump it full of water. i guess, this helps them get around a bit easier. it also explains why the images are so crisp.

click on the below headings to display the corresponding image.

did you see the recent report claiming masturbation prevents prostate cancer. if this is true, i think i'm more likely to get ovarian cancer before prostate. it's nice to know there's at least one malady out there i'm entirely immune to.

i stopped taking vicodan on saturday. i'd been on them for a week an a half and they certainly handled their business. after leaving the hospital, i never experienced discomfort except once when i got lazy about my pill schedule. reason i had to quit them is they were clouding my thoughts and to my great pleasure i have a job that requires unclouded thought. what i didn't account for was the lingering effects of the narcotic.

when i arrived to work on monday i was still a touch foggy. in my addled and unproductive state, i somehow stumbled upon this guy randy pausch. mid last year randy, a college professor, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given 3-6 months to live. he has three kids, his oldest being one year younger than bella. the stir about him stems from how he has shouldered this tragic development. how everyone found about him was through his Last Lecture. last lectures are a university-ritual and occur when a long-standing prof finally steps down and delivers their final official lecture. randy's last talk, titled Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, focuses not on his field of study, virtual reality, but instead on his life experience. my favorite bit in there was something a female colleague told him about dating: the hour long talk was worth those twenty-seven words alone. intrigued i dug a little deeper and found another, subsequent talk randy gave at another university on time management (he does get to claim a bit of authority on the topic after all). also very informational and inspiring. and if you're still jonsin' for more randy, as was i, there's a diane sawyer interview that is not great, but ok.

his experience is surely adding some perspective to my current state which in comparison would barely rate as a head cold, or maybe even a festering whitehead.

i didn't take my first shower for six days. the only reason i bathed on the sixth day was i had to leave my bed and my house for a follow-up with the surgeon. the nurses had told marty that the incisions couldn't get wet. they suggested she use saran-wrap to cover the stitches to bathe. so while i was still in bed marty wrapped my leg liberally with the clear sticky plastic. when done, i crutched my way to the bathroom and started the water.

getting into the bathtub proved tricky since i couldn't put any weight on my right leg. after studying the tub obstacle i realized i could sit on the side of the tub and lift one leg over the rim and then the other. once both were inside, i just had to stand up and balance on one leg. the tub was slick which made pivoting on one foot for soap and shampoo precarious. also, closing my eyes and washing my hair also challenged my ability to stay upright. seeing me wobble marty reached a hand in and held me under the shoulder to help keep me from tipping one way or another. while she gripped my armpit and i washed my parts she noticed the saran-wrap mummy-job began collecting water so with her free hand she pushed the water free and pressed the wrap flat trying to keep new water from getting in. with great and coordinated effort we got through this initial cleansing.

four days later i was slated for shower number two in that i was going into the office. this was a trial run of sorts to see how much labor would go into getting out the door for work since marty will be delivering me to work after dropping the kids at school. marty and i discussed the failings of shower one. i told her we should call my mom to see if she still had any of the shower seats my grandparents used while living my parents. marty said we'd be fine.

this time i encased the knee more securely adding layers or saran-wrap and stretching them tighter. i hobbled to the tub and pulled the curtain back. in the bath was an igloo cooler we use for camping. my bathing seat. grinning, i disrobed, started the water and did my funny sit on the tub ledge and teased my legs over the side trick. now this time instead of trying my one-footed balancing act, i just had to move from the edge of the tub to the top of the cooler. i grabbed onto the washcloth holder and lifted myself high enough to make the switch. marty was there again with her hand under my armpit helping me get situated. as i started lowering myself on the cooler i looked at the dirty white lid and commented to marty that i didn't know what was dirtier at this moment, my ass or the top of the cooler. laughing, marty said she just spent twenty minutes cleaning it (you must consider that this plastic box has spent many a night sitting outside in the woods). but i got seated and then i got clean. and with much less fuss than last time.

when i was done and began exiting the tub i realized i would be going into work with a deep and concise impression of the IGLOO logo stamped into my right buttock and a ruler, of all things, stamped on my left. at first i was mystified what the purpose of having a ruler molded into the top of a cooler was but as i stood in front of the sink running my fingers over the small hashmarks and numbers indented on my buttcheek i surmised it was probably for measuring fish. i imagine i was the first igloo cooler customer to ever solve that puzzle in that exact way, but i bet i'm NOT the first customer who could have measured fish with their ass.

early in our dating life marty cared for me once after i had my wisdom teeth out. in short, i was an ass of a patient. given this history she was not too keen on revisiting having to care for me. i was also sensitive to the implications of it. i don't know if it's the kids or my age or advances in medicine (esp drugs) but this time through has been much better, meaning i've been a much more manageable and hospitable patient, fairly low-impact even.

most importantly through all of this we've found occasion to laugh still. some at me, some at her and some at our kids. my favorite of those moments came when marty and alex were helping to get me re-situated in bed. i was holding my leg in the air, alex was holding the pillows my leg would rest on and marty was wrapping my leg with a bandage. alex looked down and saw something sneaking out of my boxers and through a cringing and turned away face shouted out in his falsetto voice, "eeewww! i can see your penis!" for the record, he was lucky i was even wearing boxers and technically it was my scrotum he was seeing and not my penis. although i think my more winsome-looking penis (compared to my scrotum) would have still been met with a shrill eeewww!