Today's Cystoscopy

It knocked the sh*t out of me. Literally. As you might remember, after taking the steroid dosepak, I was supposed to return to UCLA hospital for a follow-up cystoscopy three months later. Today was the day. I haven't pissed blood since. So I was optimistic there would be no problem, but you never know. The body is made to deteriorate, no one here gets out alive, something's gonna get you. Now no matter how calm you feel, you never get a good night's sleep before procedures like this. Actually, I had a wild dream where this waiter in Vail sold me a jacket. It was $495. Really pretty cool. I was supposed to be having dinner with friends and family downstairs at Russell's, which doesn't even have a downstairs, but after sitting at the table silently I excused myself to go to the bathroom and when I was done, I took a seat at a two-top and this waiter came along and after sizing me up he left and returned with this jacket. Kinda hard to describe, it was fabric, not leather, something you'd wear at night, it had a lining, which was removable and...thinking about it afterward it reminded me of this Guess jacket I had back in the eighties. Anyway... I find it nearly impossible to shop for clothes. I question my taste and the ultimate fit but this guy sized me up perfectly! So I was excited when he said we should go downstairs for jeans, but they didn't have my size, and this guy wasn't going to sell me anything that wasn't exactly right. Turns out his name is Fred and really he runs a bookstore and he's not going to be back at the restaurant until Tuesday, when new threads are delivered, so I'm making a mental note to dream about him a week from now. The dream was a good diversion, you never know where this stuff comes from, what it means, and it kept me distracted while I showered and ate and then... I had to skedaddle for the hospital. I've learned to check the map app first, you never know where the traffic might be, and I was routed on Sepulveda instead of the 405, and it was crowded at first but I got there in time and after checking in, I had to provide a urine sample. I wondered if I had enough in me. This had occurred to me just before I left the house, and I tried to imbibe, but I just wasn't thirsty. Really, I was standing in the bathroom with the plastic cup and I felt that I would be unable to deliver, wondering if I eked out a few drops whether it would be enough, but eventually I got a flow going and returned to the waiting room. Where I didn't have to wait long until I was called inside by the football expert. I guess I always feel obligated to service people. I'm trying to work on this with my shrink. But I was stunned that this woman didn't remember our prior conversation, unlike the guy I ran into the hall after I peed, who had sent his Tudor watch in for repair, I wanted to ask him how it was doing. And after taking off my clothes, donning the robe but leaving it open in the back, the NFL expert came back in with another woman, and she told me how great this replacement was, and I casually said that I guess we'd talk about football another time. This stopped her in her tracks. She lamented handing me off. Rather than leaving, she wanted to get into it. Who was my team and..? I read enough news to fake it, but I was just trying to make her feel comfortable, so I let her go for her replacement who told me she had four jobs. You see I asked her what she did when she didn't work. She told me she loved to work! I asked if this was for the money, but no...it was the work itself. As for the four jobs... The two in the middle had to do with working at a charitable organization and the fourth was being a mother, she said she had four kids. I immediately wondered about supervision and behavior. But when I asked her about this she said there was no problem, you could tell she ran her household with an iron fist. And then she raised my gown, scrubbed my dick, placed it in a hole of fabric so it was akin to SNLs Dick in a Box, and I'm thinking how this is de rigueur, an unknown woman manhandling my penis. Well, she was gentle, and it wasn't sexy and it wasn't weird emotionally, but intellectually... You'd think they'd have a guy do this, but no... And then another woman came in! To inject me with the lidocaine! Yup, they fill up this big syringe and shoot it right up your dick. And if you think that's painful... Well, let's just say it's somewhere between uncomfortable and painful. Meanwhile, we're b.s.'ing... And I'm thinking how this is my socialization. I don't go to an office, I'm hearing from people all day long in e-mail and iMessage, but face to face? That has fallen off since Covid, for everybody. Then again, is this a problem, have I gotten too removed from society? And I'm thinking about it... If I get together with someone from the music business, they're going to sell me. It's the nature of the game. They're gonna promote what they're involved in. The worst are the managers, but if they're bothering to get together with you, they want something, it's just another move on the giant chessboard. And even if they're not promoting, they're building their network, it's ultimately transactional. This is not like hanging with your buds from school. I will say not everybody falls into this category. And the more successful people are the less this occurs, but... I'm sitting there thinking about how I'm chatting it up with all these people. I asked this third woman what she liked to do when she wasn't working and she immediately told me she loved to cook, that she'd gone to culinary school, but this paid better. After all, she was raising two kids...their father did not live in the house. The kids were thirteen and eighteen and... These conversations require navigation. You want to make sure you don't come across as special, better than them, so the eighteen year old... I'm not going to ask if she's going to college, because what if she isn't? That would come across as judgment. So I asked this woman what her eighteen year old daughter did all day. And after hearing about a McJob and hanging with her buds, this nurse revealed her daughter was going to Pierce in the fall. (That's a community college if you don't live in L.A. Unlike where I've lived before, many start at the community college and then fly up to UCLA or Cal State Northridge or San Luis Obispo...) And then she shoots the lidocaine up my dick, as we're talking about all this, like this is an everyday occurrence, like we're buds and this is not weird that she's addressing my penis. And then she leaves and tells me the doctor will be in soon. Soon? Time is going by and the second woman returns to check on me and I'm thinking of asking her to retrieve my phone. I'd heard the bell for a text. I was bored out of my mind and I was fearful of falling asleep. But I felt if I'd waited this long... And then the doctor arrived. Like a relief pitcher in the last innings. With a determined face, ready to address the problem. He was all business. There was no warmup, he immediately got the gun, pushed the tube up the canal and started shooting me up with water and retrieving urine... Now the first time this was done, it was uber-painful. But that was a different doctor. The last time, with this guy, it was much more gentle. But this time??? He's pumping out two giant tubes of urine. And it seems in order to do this he's got to inject enough water to force it out and to say I'm uncomfortable is an understatement. I mean I'm at almost a constant 9 on the pain scale. And every few seconds or so, he's injecting me with more water. And he's not stopping, this is going on and on. WHAT THE HELL IS HE LOOKING FOR! WHAT THE HELL IS HE SEEING? I've been around this block, when the M.D. spends a lot of time on the test, it's almost never a good thing. They're assessing the landscape and... I won't say I'm quite worried, but what's up? I mean the doctor is staring at the monitor. Last time he turned it so I could play along. But this time, he's concentrating... And I'm wondering what's going on as he keeps injecting water into me, like a knife to the groin. Can he not see what he's looking for? Is it that hazy inside of me? Is that why he's shooting me up with so much water as I'm starting to arch my back in pain? Finally, after poking around inside me way longer than he did the last time, he doesn't remove the catheter, but he does stop shooting in water, and tells me he doesn't see any cancer. WELL, THAT'S GOOD! And then he pokes around a bit more and reiterates this point and then pulls out... Now what? Medical issues when you're old are very different from when you're young. They're testing on a regular basis, you're constantly going back, it's like you're a Formula 1 car and you must be kept in tip-top shape for the rest of the race, knowing that what seems tiny can be the difference between winning and losing, life and death. But the M.D. is now getting it together to leave the room. Wait! So when is the next cystoscopy, do I have to come again? NO! I'm done! I get a clean bill of health. Then again, the doctor tells me that they're going to test the urine that they extracted from me and something could show up, but he was saying that almost as an afterthought. And I tell him I hope I don't see him again. And he tells me not here, i.e. the hospital. And he exits. And then woman number two, who is not a nurse, but is qualified to handle my dick, gives me all these paper towels... Well, maybe they weren't paper, they were thick and... There's a stack of wet ones and a stack of dry ones. She lays down a carpet of paper and tells me to squat and clean myself up and leave the detritus on the floor. And I'm thinking this is like taking a crap in a European bathroom. Or maybe having a baby standing up. And I'm washing and drying and my dick is hurting and... I've got to go to the bathroom. All that water they shoot up you, it's got to come out. But no one comes back to ask how I'm doing, so I walk into the hall in my gown where I'm promptly stopped and... This guy wants to know what I'm doing, I'm obviously breaking protocol. But I tell him I've got to pee and I scoot to the bathroom where I stand there and let free a stream of the most yellow urine you've ever seen. And then return to my room, change my clothes and then... Nothing. I mean isn't someone gonna come and lead me out? Isn't it breaking the rules to leave by myself? But after waiting for a while I decide to poke my head into the hall, I've seen so many people, odds are one of them is going to be passing by and I can ask them. But there's no one there. Eventually I stop someone new and put forth my dilemma, he tells me I can leave. And then I head back to the bathroom. Where I sit on the throne and I start to crap. Wait a minute, this makes no sense. I mean they didn't go up that end! But it's continuing on a regular basis, intermittently. I can tell I'm not done, but I'm getting anxious about taking up space, using the bathroom. I feel like I'm doing something wrong, sitting there for ten plus minutes. That someone is going to knock on the door and tell me to get the hell out. But then I'm thinking there aren't quite a plethora of bathrooms in the Clark Urology Center, but there's always a free one, so I sit there until... Now the nature of this is you don't leave pain-free. The tip of your dick... And you do have this urge to pee. And when I get back home I take an immediate pee and then... I get the urge to go #2 again. I mean I'm sitting on the toilet ultimately for about half an hour. And I'm still producing, however intermittently. Eventually I get up, and I'm so wasted. I mean I've had a lot of medical procedures. They can take a toll on your body. But this was minor when it comes to invasiveness and drugs, it was not surgery and other than the localized lidocaine, there was no anesthesia and... It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Unlike on the east coast sunny days in L.A. are usually cloud-free, as if we're living in "The Truman Show" or something. And although it's hot, it ain't really humid and... It's f*cking great to be alive! And for now, it's clear sailing. At least as it comes down to my bladder... As for my regular leukemia checkup, that's next week! -- Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ -- Listen to the podcast: -iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj -Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp -- http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25