Well, I can cross-out THAT one from my bucket list.
Having gone through a prostate biopsy on Monday - while no piece of cake - was not the torture-rack experience I was building myself up for.
Then again, it was more “involved” than two friends and my father-in-law, Bud Shope, had promised.
“Uncomfortable” was the way they each described their own first-hand biopsy experiences. Uh-huh.
Yes, uncomfortable is the correct word for both the self-performed Fleet enema an hour or so before the procedure.
And uncomfortable was the setting where a multi-purpose probe was inserted into the rectum. (Doesn’t this sound so inviting?)
I went into this thinking that the probe to be something small.
So just imagine how surprised I became when after Dr. Lawrence Wolkoff drilled and tapped his way to the prostate gland the probe swelled to the size of a fire hose.
Yeah, I grant that this portion of the process was uncomfortable.
Next came Wolkoff sending a vile of Novocaine into the gland in order to deaden what was to come next.
Come to think of it, maybe there were a couple of other needle pricks. I’m not sure since my prostate never really expressed physical displeasure before the way a bump on the head, broken arm or even a stomach ache feels.
In any event, as I was laying on my left side, right leg pulled up into my chest, Wolkoff sent the actual tool used to extract prostate core samples for further pathological study and determination.
The first drill bit startled me far more than it hurt. The best way to describe this step would be to say that the tool left me with the impression of a spring-loaded plunger that when snapped, yanked out some part of my protesting prostate.
Wolkoff then repeated this step nine more times, careful to give me advance warning what was coming. His assistant - a female, but at this point I really didn’t care who was looking at my big, fat ugly butt - gently held my feet down.
That’s because first snip resulted in a huge recoil on my part. Which, come to think about it, defeated the long-standing law of physics that every action produces a reaction, equal in force and opposite in direction.
My reaction far exceeded Newton’s law, almost sending Wolkoff flying into the back wall.
In about 10 minutes time his work was done, Wolkoff noting that he got what he was looking for.
Funny thing was, however, I could not help but imagine how any of the supposed walnut-sized prostate gland could possibly remain, given that the good doctor had extracted 10 samples in all.
Still, it was all for a good cause.
Having seen my PSA score nearly double and refusing to decline sent the alarm bills ringing. Such incidents must be explored, my doctors said, in order to unearth whether the cause is from prostate cancer or perhaps simply the result of a benign, enlarged gland.
Considering the National Cancer Institute says that about 242,000 American men are diagnosed annually with prostate cancer and that about 30,000 die each year from the male-only disease, I was more than willing to let my mind go crazy and become lost within the swamp of despair.
That’s not good, of course, and it also flies in the face of all the words of encouragement from friends and prayers from fellow Christians.
Then again, in hindsight, the experience was not all that bad. Just don’t ever ask me to volunteer to be a stand-in for another man facing the same thing.
Once was more than enough, thank you.
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com
Twitter: @Fieldkorn
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