My Vasectomy

image source: http://www.sarmonster.netStory by Duane K. Troxel

The year was 1976, my first and last bicentennial issue. Our (it turns out) last child was born in September of that year and my wife said, “That’s it!” (Leroy, if you’re reading this your Mom didn’t mean “it” in a pejorative - this-kid-is-the-last-straw sense - but in an I’m-not-going-to-experience-the-miracle-of-birth-anymore sense.)

I quietly suggested she might get her tubes tied but she remarked that up ‘til now she’d walked alone on the wild side of the reproductive region. It was my turn to take a trip. “You’re going to get a vasectomy! That’s all there is to it.”

Three times I’d coached her breathing in the labor room and watched as she heroically expelled large screaming beings from her lower region while she rhythmically pumped metal stirrups and emitted low moans while I whispered to the Deity: “Thank you God for making me male.”

A vasectomy, how tough could it be? Just to be on the safe side I made it crystal clear to my doctor that I wanted a general anesthetic. I wanted to be there but not in a pain-feeling way. Insurance for general anesthesia dictated a complete physical replete with three different contributions of bodily byproducts.

The day came for the operation. I’m on a gurney wearing a translucent hospital gown with the obligatory foot wide opening down the back. My gurney is parked next to a young lady who is also waiting her turn for one of the operating theatres.

Theatres? Why couldn’t they call it a “wellness recovery zone”? Were they selling tickets? Would they flip me over on my stomach once I was out cold and make comical photos of me involving thermometers, long stemmed flowers and magic markers?

The lady and I have a strained and halting conversation. It’s probably what one experiences the first time s/he walks in the buff through a nudist colony. “Do I really want to share that special part of myself with total strangers?” No, not really.

Bad news. The O.R. nurse comes over to explain they can’t find all my test results and without them I cannot undergo general anesthesia. However, I can have the procedure under local anesthetic. I hasten to explain that the young lady had just shared with me that she was going to have her uterus removed, which goes by the delightful name of “hysterectomy” which is where we get the word “hysterical.”

Now we men are under an unwritten obligation to tough stuff out. I’m probably as brave as the next guy, which is to say, when you’re dealing with surgery on that part of the lower region we just want our mommies.

Before I realized it I had blurted out, “Sure, let’s get this done.” (I’ve seen way too many movies starring action heroes who say stuff like that.)

I said goodbye to the lady who was going to be scooped out like a cantaloupe and instantly became obsessed with potential medical malpractice.

Now every guy will tell you that he is “normal” or “average” in the lower region but what he won’t tell you is that he’s convinced he doesn’t quite measure up to female expectations regardless of how much she may reassure him he’s more than adequate in that department.

Well now I know how liberated women must feel to have their feet thrust into stirrups with their knees hyper-extended skyward whilst a group of strangers explore the dark side of the moon.

I drew two pretty young nurses who were way too nonchalant about the whole process. First off they scarcely acknowledged my existence while they chattered on about the wonders of cooking with zucchini. (I wanted to say, “Hey, it’s cold in here, you know?”) They vigorously swabbed my lower region with bright red iodine. All the while I’m lying there with my eyes closed. Keeping your eyes shut should have the same impersonal result as a general anesthetic but it doesn’t. They know. And you know they know.

Fortunately neither of the young ladies giggles out loud or says in a semi-whisper, “Have you ever tried cooking that with asparagus?” I don’t know what I would have done had one of them even so much as tittered.  I had a nanosecond fantasy of leaping off the gurney and running pell-mell down the hallway.

Now the doctor comes forward. He’s a man. (Thank you God.) He explains in simple laymen’s language that he’s going to cut out a piece of a tube known as the vas deferens. (I hear only the phrase: “vast difference”). It’s the tube that carries sperm from the testicles to the urethra. I’m thinking: “Just where do sperm go who can’t get out?” Perhaps that’s how sperm whales evolved, while they swim endlessly in vain looking for an exit? And what happens when/if they die? I’ve seen those bellies-up aquarium fish. They rot. Right? And hey, isn’t it true that testes produce about a gazillion of these little guys every day? Will my testicles swell up as though I’ve contracted elephantiasis? I’ve seen that photograph of a man pushing a wheelbarrow carrying his enormous scrotum. I think all these things but you know real men never ask for help (or directions).

The moment of truth arrives. Though I did raise my head earlier to see how my private world was holding up I could make out only silhouette forms through my gown as nurses’ hands prepared my lower regions for the knife.

Now I’m as brave as the next guy, which is to say I stifled a scream as I felt the subtle pressure of the scalpel. “Oh please don’t let there be a cutting noise. Don’t let him be seized with an uncontrollable sneeze. Don’t let one of the nurses bump him or the lights go out.”  These thoughts come and go in milliseconds and then it’s over!

The doctor looks around my knees and gives me thumbs up. Just the reassuring gesture I want to see. (But imagine—if he were a prankster—making the same gesture with the thumb hidden in his fist.) He explains that I will feel a little tenderness in my testicles for a day or so and that I should be able to go to work on Monday. It’s now Friday afternoon.

“A little tenderness” is replaced by the feeling that a blacksmith’s anvil has been chained to my testicles. Every time I have to get out of bed a scrotum-imprisoned sperm whale struggles to breech and blow. I was able to go to work on Monday but walked gingerly as though I had competed unsuccessfully in a weeklong naked bull-riding contest. 

Yes, my vasectomy was a long time ago but I remember it as though it were yesterday. Real men never forget their manly sacrifices for the weaker sex.