Just as a point of information, I told the nurse who was scraping my chest with a pink Lady Schick that I wouldn't be needing a digital rectal exam today because the one done yesterday by a urologist was more than sufficient.  I also expressed to her my dismay at having been referred to that particular specialist without first getting a good look at him and his index finger which was, like him, fat and short and not at all the sort of thing one wants exerting the dynamic force required in a thorough exploration of the prostate.  This made her laugh, and when one has a woman with a razor to one's chest, hard laughing is another of those dynamic forces that inspire second thoughts.

But I needn't have worried.  The only thing near the blade was my heart, once rumored to be vital.  I suspect it's but a tiny black knot now, its walls slathered with the consequence of pork roasts and pies most of which were lovingly prepared by women who knew all along that the quickest way to a man's heart is directly through his ribcage.  Thus the razor.  The electrodes.  The EKG.

It was my first physical in nearly 13 years, the last one having been done upon my arrival at that jolly camp in the desert run by Mrs. Ford.  But that was then.  Now I'm 44, and tests run on 44-year-old men always hold more promise than those done on young whippersnappers.

My GP was most concerned with two things: my cholesterol and my stream.  The former is a subject where it's easy to be matter-of-fact.  LDL and HDL - they're all about chemistry.  The latter, my stream, well, we evaluated the extraordinarily subjective nature of streams and their nuances, their habits, and their impact upon the quality of my life.  The doc and I, we shared, man.

The reason I wake up at night is because I have a cat, thankyouverymuch, but apparently the tabulation of my answers to the questionnaire indicates the use of Flomax, an optimistic brand name I can now invoke instead of that mental picture of horses in full bladder relief I've come to find so handy all these years.

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