Finger up the bum time
- 4 hours ago
- 6 min read
A POLISH man popped his finger up my bottom last week and asked if it hurt. I’ve not had a finger pushed up my bottom before (I promise I’d tell you if I had) so it was hard to know what the pain threshold is or what to measure it against.
At this point I probably should point out that the Polish man is in fact my doctor, a doctor with a very direct style - both with his fingers and his manner. I’d popped in to see him due to that great and wonderful and somewhat cursed thing called a prostate.
You see for some time - in fact for a long time - things down there have not been working like they used to. And I really miss how things used to work down there and realise I did not appreciate just how great things were when stuff down there worked really, really well.
Call the plumber
Today, I sit down when I go for a wee. Yes, I sit down. It takes that long. During a recent trip to the cinema with my son we nipped into the loo for a wee. Standing next to my son at the urinals he opened his bladder, pissed like a racehorse and was done. “Dad,” he says. “My wee is like a jet fighter plane…yours is more like a crop sprayer.” Yes - that is funny, and very accurate, and a great description of how I now wee:
- wait, wait, wait
- slow flow begins
- slow flow stops
- slow flow begins
- slow flow reduces to a trickle
- then a few drops
- another late slow flow
- some droplets
- and basically repeat all the above for what seems an age
Finally when you think it’s all over and everything is safely tucked away - the obligatory little late-to-the-party dribble and the small patch of wee seeping through your pants.
Great.
Clearly not all is well in that department - hence my visit to the Polish doctor.
So there I am in the surgery. Lying on my side with my trousers down around my ankles. There’s no point in worrying about dignity when you get to my age. A gloved finger is inserted into the holy hole and when the doctor asks if it hurts when he presses ‘here’ I respond in a slightly falsetto voice that it’s a ‘little bit tender, yes’. He removes finger and says: “You have a very enlarged prostrate for someone your age.”
Great.
Now before I’ve pulled my trousers up I’m already planning my funeral, from readings to poems and songs. This is it. It’s over. I’ve obviously got cancer and it has clearly spread to other parts of my body and I’ve three months to live. It’s not as if I catastrophise or anything. In my head I’ve already written the final letter to my son filled with all the wisdom for him to live a life of adventure and fulfil his potential; I’ve practised telling my wife how much I love her and I’ve mentally located the life insurance documents.
“It doesn’t mean it’s cancer - but it does mean we need to do a blood test,” says direct speaking Polish doctor.
Great.
The next day I’m sat back in my local surgery with all the people waiting for blood tests. Our names are on the digital screen and we wait anxiously for a numbered booth to appear by our name so we can find out what ailments we have. Clever stuff blood. It’s the tell all substance coursing around our body from the beginning of life to the very end. When that stops. We stop.
Waiting in a doctors/hospital/clinic waiting room is something I’ve been doing way too much of lately. This is time you never get back. I look around and see people in wheelchairs, hobbling around on zimmer frames. Many are clearly on the slightly rotund end of the scale. There’s an elderly couple bickering about where they should have parked the car. Everything I observe I don’t want to be, and I reaffirm my commitment to living healthier and not stressing the small stuff.
I watch the dark red blood leaving my arm and filling up the little vial and wonder what secrets it will reveal about me.
And then the wait. Despite the nurse telling me it will take about 2-3 days to get the results I’ve already opened my NHS app and started checking it by the time I get back to the car. At home I suddenly decide to throw out all the old newspapers and magazines I’ve been hoarding since about 1998 under some bizarre plan that I’ll go back through and read them all one day. I clear out all the odd socks in the sock draw and sweep out the garage. There I am, prepping for death, for the news that’s coming that I have incurable cancer.
I watched my dad die slowly, painfully, miserably, from bowel cancer when he was in his 50s. I left a robust, handsome, full-head-of-hair father and went to live in Australia. I returned two years later to find a small, balding, withered, frail man with the bony fingers of death gripping his shoulders. When you’ve seen this happen to a man who was the age you are now it tends to play on your mind.
I continue to check the app. Nothing.
What flow you have!
My mind drifts back to the young man I once was. An all too brief chapter with a beautiful and robust girl from a mining town in the north of England. Something she said to me has stayed with me and seems to resonate while I await my blood test results. “I’ve never ‘eard anyone take a piss like you do. It’s like a bloomin waterfall being switched on and then seconds later being switched off.”
Now, I’d like to think there were other things I did that deserved some recognition back then but probably not. But it’s confirmation that once upon a time the plumbing between my bladder and the end of my penis was primed, efficient and worthy of comment from a girl who could drink me under the table.
Results day
Like a nervous teenager awaiting his GCSE results my NHS app tells me that the results are in for my blood test.
Would it be a pass or a fail? Retakes? I failed all the GCSEs (ok O-levels) that I could be bothered to turn up to take, so I was hoping my blood tests results would be better than my school exams.
I skim down to the PSA test results, or my ’Total prostate specific antigen level’. Which is: 1.55ug/L [0.0 - 3.8].
“NORMAL. NO FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED.”
I live! I’m not going to die before Christmas (well, who knows)! I can put away the life insurance docs, I can go through the recycling and put back all the papers and magazines; I save the letter to my son in a file for another day that will surely come and rejoice at life’s extension.
But it’s not all good news. Turns out my cholesterol is too high. I’m advised to cut back on booze, stop eating cakes, biscuits and pastries, to start exercising more and to lose weight. Bloody cheek, I’ve just completed the Holkham Half Ironman!
I decide to cut and paste all the blood test results into AI and ask it to give me a summary. And this is what the large language model says:
If I were writing a one-line summary for you, says AI:
“These results suggest a generally healthy 56-year-old man with good blood pressure, normal blood sugar, normal liver function, normal blood counts and essentially normal kidney function.
“The main health issue identified is raised cholesterol, particularly LDL cholesterol, which is a cardiovascular risk factor but one that can often be improved through lifestyle changes and, if needed, medication.
My personal assessment: Overall health score: 8.5-9/10
“The results are actually better than many routine health checks I see for men in their mid-50s.
“The cholesterol deserves attention, but there is nothing in these blood tests that would make me think you have diabetes, liver disease, significant kidney disease, anaemia, infection, or a blood disorder.
“The next sensible step would be to discuss the cholesterol with your GP and ask for a formal QRISK assessment, but overall I'd regard these results as reassuring rather than concerning.”
So that’s all good. An overall health score of 8.5-9/10. “Reassuring rather than concerning” says the large language model - and whose going to argue with an LLM?
Of course I still have that unusually large prostate which is not something you want to brag about - so it’s back to the doctors for me and I imagine that discussion about statins.
Here's a good site if you want to know more: https://teachmeanatomy.info/pelvis/the-male-reproductive-system/prostate-gland/
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