Chattanooga Pulse

This week I had to check the ole box of getting my annual physical at the doctor’s office. And once again the experience represented one of the most vulnerable episodes a guy can handle. Maybe that’s why they only make you do it once a year.

You see, guys are born with the inherent, yet ignorant trait of believing that they feel fine all of the time. I mean you could see one of your buddies glowing yellow with jaundice, limping down the street with his femur jutting out of his leg like baseball bat in a trash bag and if you ask him how he’s doing, he’ll likely say “I’m good. You?”

That’s because as males, our role as dinosaur-clubbing providers can never be hindered by mere mortal illness or injury. Admitting weakness only puts the enemy on top. And we conquering warriors of commerce would rather drop dead than to see one iota of our kingdom jeopardized by the likes of a “sick day.”
That is, unless the sickness overcomes our brute strength with extreme nausea, headache, muscle fatigue and/or unconsciousness. Then we whine like little kids until our women folk have paid us enough sympathetic attention to properly nurse our deflated egos back to health.

But I wasn’t sick at all the day I went in to see my doctor for this year’s poke-n-prod. Nope, I was simply ill with the idea of actually finding out what’s really going on with my health—like any guy. And the steps required to complete this discovery process made me shudder just thinking about it.

First, there’s peeing in a cup. This normal procedure sparks the deepest paranoia in a guy because the only other time he has to do that in his life is during a random drug search (at possibly the wrong time). Plus, unlike girls, guys can’t turn the hydrant on and off at will which makes the transition from cup to commode a hat trick we’ll likely never perfect. Besides, while the pee test is the least invasive method of detecting narcotics currently in your system, what can it tell a doctor that a blood test cannot?

Speaking of which, drawing blood is likely the next most troubling event that can occur for a dude at the doc. A guy can callously scrape his face every day with a quatro-blade death razor, slice open his hand with a box cutter or accidentally jab himself with the slip of a screwdriver without flinching, but if you come at a man’s arm with a tiny needle and the stealth precision of painlessly drawing a small vial of his precious blood, it can drive him to passing out right there in the chair. I know guys as big as houses that have admitted asking nurses if they can lie down during this part of the drill.

After that’s over, you’re sequestered in the little exam room. Sitting there, in a paper gown, wondering when he’s coming in. Wondering what you should tell him about your health (because guys never can remember random pain or warning signs). Listening closely for the footsteps to stop outside the door and the quick turn of the lever to break the deafening silence.

You realize at that point it’s inevitable that, as a guy, you’ll be faced with the most uncomfortable set of medical procedures two men could ever engage in together. And it all starts with “slip down your shorts, please.”

As you lie there with your boys airing in the wind he grabs the jewels and performs a testicular exam (which by the way we guys are supposed to be doing monthly, but only remember this once a year when the doc says “you know to do this yourself every month, right?”). And then, after a minute or two of counting ceiling tiles it’s “turn over on your side please.”

This is where the rubber meets the road. For what’s to follow is the crème de la crème of uncomfortable doctor’s visit decorum. It’s at this point that you quickly try and calculate the circumference of the doc’s digits in relation to the one part of your body clinched tighter than a tick on a hound dog. Then you hear the telltale “POP!” of the rubber glove.

My doc always tries to ask some sort of question about some subject he vaguely remembers me being interested in just before he slips the jelly finger in through the out door. And it takes every bit of composure I can muster up for my voice not to crack a little in response. I think the conversation is supposed to relax me during this frightening event. But the most relaxed I feel all year long is leaving his office, knowing it’s 12 more months ‘til I have to go again.

Chuck Crowder is a local writer and general man about town. His opinions are just that. Everything expressed is loosely based on fact, and crap he hears people talking about. Take what you just read with a grain of salt, but pepper it in your thoughts. And be sure to check out his wildly popular website  www.thenoog.com