Appointment with
Fear!
by Nick Allen
I sat in the
waiting room while adrenaline was pumped around
my body by a thumping muscle in my chest, causing
my breathing to quicken and my stomach to churn.
To summarise, I was very frightened.
Three months
earlier I’d sat in a doctor’s office
signing a consent form for my forthcoming
vasectomy. One question was asked of me –
did I want a general or local anaesthetic? I knew
the extra difficulties and costs involved with a
general so, being a public-spirited soul, did
what any decent chap would do, and opted to be
wide awake while a man I didn’t know chopped
away with a razor-sharp knife at my genitals.
It took about
2 minutes for me to realise I’d made a huge
mistake, but by then I felt too silly and
embarrassed to reverse my decision.
The worry grew
exponentially, and when I was offered an
appointment on a Wednesday in March, I declined
by pretending to be on holiday that week. The
next appointment offered to me (a Wednesday in
May), I accepted, albeit reluctantly.
Time for
research. Loaded magazine was running a ‘My
Vasectomy’ story, which described in a
‘blokey’ way what happens under the
knife, so to speak. All well and good until the
author told of the needle going, I quote,
‘into his left bollock’. The pain he
described was excruciating and was only eclipsed
by the pain he felt when it entered his right one!
Oh dear, what had I done?
Three days
before my op I decided I needed help and I rang
the unit that was ‘doing me’ and,
speaking to a very nice-sounding nurse, asked if
it would be possible to have a pre-med to settle
my nerves. To my disappointment, laughter was my
only answer!
The night
before I must have looked a sorry sight, kneeling
on the floor of my flat, pants around my knees,
mirror in my left hand, razor in my right. To my
shame, I ended up looking like a sad, sea-dwelling
mollusc!
So, Wednesday
morning I sat waiting, racked with fear, my home-made
pre-med (gin!) apparently not having worked.
Finally, a nurse called my name and I walked into
a room and lay on the butcher’s slab that
awaited me.
The doctor,
syringe in hand, headed for my groin while the
nurse firmly held my hand. I assume it was to
stop me lashing out at the poor man injecting me,
so I squeezed back with all my might! To my
relief, the expected pain never came, and while
the surgeon busied himself between my legs, I
relaxed enough to chat to the nurse. I commented
on the coincidence that both my appointments had
been on a Wednesday. “We do all the men on
Wednesdays”, she told me. “We call it
Willie Wednesday! We do ladies on Fridays, but I
won’t tell you what we call those!”
Dignity intact,
I left the theatre and encountered a man voicing
his very grave doubts about the wisdom of the
whole procedure to a very patient nurse. I
couldn’t help wonder what the heck he was
worrying about…..
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