- Fish shares a little more than you needed to know

There is a discomforting cloud of tension in the waiting room at the urologist's office. Everyone speaks just slightly lower than normal, nobody makes eye contact, and when people move around the room they give others generous personal space. When their names are called, the patients move quickly, anxious to leave the waiting room. Now granted, doctors' waiting rooms are rarely festive places, but at my regular physician's office I've had old ladies chit-chat with me about their grandkids, and have watched mothers go yammering off after their noisy children. By contrast, this room is quiet, edgy, nervous. The reason for this is quite simple: those waiting at the urologist's office are there because they have... certain problems. With certain parts of their body. And for men, this is (if you'll pardon the pun) a sensitive area. Men are loathe to discuss this region, nevertheless have medical care performed upon it. Appendicitis? Grab the scalpel. Prostate surgery? Now, hold on a minute there, doc. The problems that urologists treat involve things that strike right to the core of the male psyche, and the (largely older) men waiting in the room with me are feeling vulnerable, perhaps emasculated. Feeling less than themselves, their embarrassment and discomfort has created this strange pall in the air.

However, I am particularly aware of the nervous silence because I am immune to it; I am outside it. I am reminded of a meeting at my previous job when, a week after I'd given notice, management called a company-wide gathering to announce they were laying off a third of the employees. It was an extremely distressing and tense meeting, but I felt strangely abstracted from it, like I was watching it on a television set -- because I knew it wasn't going to affect me. It's the same situation here in the waiting room. While the old men around me are clearly nervous about whatever ails them, I am unaffected, and thus at ease. Unlike them, I know that whatever I have is nothing serious. Two weeks previous I had developed an annoying condition; I would urinate, and the sensation of still having to go would obnoxiously stick around an extra hour, like that last guest at a party. My women friends were quick to compare this to a UTI -- giving me visions of having to main-line cranberry juice. However, while I was now in the urologist's office, the condition no longer worried me, for two reasons: 1) in between making the appointment and actually attending it, the condition had already come and gone, and 2) my regular physician, who had referred me to the urologist, had already run a bunch of tests, all negative -- giving me confidence that nothing truly serious had gone awry with my piping.

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Aforementioned tests were an experience unto themselves. First, a urine sample. Straightforward, little new to report: pee into cup, doctor dunks urine-happy pH paper into sample, finis. The second test, taking a culture, was far less simple. As if there weren't already enough reasons to avoid getting gonorrhea, I've now added "getting to avoid the test" to the top of that list. When your doctor gathers a throat culture, s/he takes a cotton swab and rubs it against the back of your throat, right? I think you can see where I'm going here. Collecting the culture for this test involves placing a narrow form of Q-Tip into the urethra and then scraping the inside wall. Ok, technically, it's "swabbing", but it sure feels like scraping, as it sent me into paroxysms of twitching and sweating for a good two minutes afterwards. Avoid the clap, kids; I wouldn't be surprised if the cure is worse than the disease.

Third, of course, is the prostate exam. The first time I had this exam I went into it with teeth gritted, expecting considerable pain. After all, every sitcom and dumb 80's B-movie ever made brings up this exam at one point or another, with considerable attention paid to how much the protagonist wishes to avoid the procedure. I soon learned, however, that the alleged trauma has been considerably exaggerated. You see, the discomfort stems not from physical pain, but from homophobia. The exam itself is really not all that agonizing -- but most straight men are not comfortable having someone else's finger placed up their ass. Now, mind you, it's not exactly my idea of a good time, either -- certainly not something I'd pursue in my off time -- but it's not the primal horror I'd been led to believe. For those who haven't had one, the procedure is more odd than painful: you never really realize that the sensation that you have to urinate comes from a specific spot, a pressure on the bladder that's localized in one area. However, during the exam, the sensation comes from... nowhere. Once again, my women friends were quick to empathize, noting this is the same thing that happens when you put pressure on the female analogue of the prostate -- the Grafenberg spot. However, any potential ecstasy to be had from having my "male G spot" toyed with was probably killed off by the fact that my "partner" was a middle-aged medical professional and we were in an examining room at the time. This trio of tests, however, all came out negative. As far as my doctor's office was concerned, my plumbing was the picture of health. Hence, the referral to the specialist. When the condition went away several days after the referral, I could have just canceled the appointment, but figured, hey, I could be wrong; the disappearance of the sensation might not be indicative of recovery, and it could be something more serious. And anyhow, my co-payment is only $5, so why not.

It was thus that I found myself in the urologist's waiting room. When my name was called and I was led to the examining room, I immediately noticed the Wall. The Wall is just an ordinary wall, with a door, between the waiting room and the offices beyond. But on one side of this great divider, one finds nervousness: patients sitting in the chairs, rifling through magazines, keeping to themselves. On the other side: a relaxed, comfortable air, where medical professionals are bright, cheery, and spoke at a normal conversational tone. They, after all, have nothing to fear. The exam itself was anti-climatic (ahem) compared to the edgy aura of the waiting room. With condition seemingly gone and tests negative, the urologist concluded it was "just one of those things" and confirmed that I had nothing to worry about. Mandatory HMO-soothing paperwork in hand, I was sent on my way, $10 poorer (counting the outrageous hospital parking fees), but with peace of mind. Which, to me, is easily worth ten bucks. In the end, I should be thankful that I'm young and (reasonably) healthy and can get away with such a simple procedure. Studying the psycho-sociological curiosity of waiting room tension is a luxury afforded to snobby twentysomething writers who don't have any of the medical problems that create the tension -- and despite my arrogant youth, I know that prostate problems are hardly something to snicker at. But one's plumbing is only one of many parts of the body that get rusty, and forced to choose, there are other organs (e.g. heart or lungs or brain) that I'd much rather keep from turning south. That this area of medicine should inspire such discomfort among its patients only shows how integrated these organs are to the male self-image. Clean pipes, clean psyche -- even if nobody likes having to visit the plumber.