“Your prostate: Doctor please remove your ring!”

Have you had your physical yet?  Middle aged men are encouraged to schedule a complete physical at about 40 years old.  The doctor will check your heart, your prostate, your cholesterol, your prostate, your lungs, your prostate, check your skin for lesions and growths, your prostate, and your weight and your prostate.  Maybe I have not conveyed properly that they will also check an organ that doctors really don’t understand completely but that can begin to fail at middle age and cause discomfort and death, the prostate.  Not to be confused with the word prostrate.

I did it at the request (also referred to as constant nagging) from my wife.  She made the appointment and I had only one request, ask the doctor’s ring size.  When you are a teenager you are worried about the expression “turn your head and cough” and now at middle age it is “assume the position.”  It was now time for me to subject myself to the dreaded finger wag through a sphincter muscle that was designed in my mind for output, not input.

Despite my dread and sense of foreboding, my first encounter was not as bad as I thought it would be.  I was sure I would tense up and feel as though I was being impaled by a pine cone.  The doctor calmed my fears as I moved to get off the examination and assume what I thought was the appropriate position.  He stopped me and told me to roll over and face the wall in a fetal position.  How did he know that is what I wanted to do now?  He explained that this is the new and best way to check the prostate and if I will relax it will not be completely unpleasant.   With the right amount of lubricant, a rubber glove and a size 10 finger, my prostate was checked and given a clean bill of health.  Of course they still had to check it chemically by looking in my blood for PSA (Prostate-specific antigen), but it was not enlarged.  A relief as I cleaned the excess lubricant from between by buttocks.  Later, I found out that my PSA was normal and I was good to go.  I left knowing my cholesterol was high, I was slightly overweight, and my prostate was that of a 20 year old!   Everyone you speak to know what happens behind the closed door of a 40 year olds examination and they will ask how it went, with a little smirk or giggle.  I simply told them all it went well and that I felt I should have asked the doctor out for drinks and a movie.

I have my PSA check yearly and my prostate physically checked every two years.  It is not a do it yourself test like a woman’s breast exam, so you do want a doctor.  My last experience, of which I have only had two, involved a female nurse practitioner who had to take the place of the doctor because of scheduling conflicts.  Lucky for me, and my ego, the woman was not attractive, had long slender fingers, and was gentle.

The prostate can cause real concerns and problems in middle age.  Despite our jokes and comments concerning the little organ, it is a very important that all middle age males make the appointment to have it checked.   Cancer is the major worry and sometimes it can just enlarge causing great discomfort during urination and a condition when your urine stream is not strong enough to write your name in the snow, but flows weakly in simulated Morris Code.  Sounds a lot like S.O.S.!  I frequently find myself standing at a urinal in a public men’s room listening to the urine flow of the middle aged or older man next to me and determining by the -dot, dot, dot, dash, dot dot dot- of the urine hitting the water, that an enlarged prostate is more common than we care to admit!  If you can’t quite find the nerve to get the “finger wag” at least request having your PSA level check and discuss your urination with your doctor.    

Have a prostate story?  Share it with us. 

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