Anesthesia eliminates excuses

Men take better care of their lawn mowers than they do their bodies.

It's sad, but true.

We are medical wimps when it comes to routine medical maintenance. We don't like being probed and poked and people peeking under the hood of our manliness.

That's why we die young. At least younger than women who are intellectually superior and somehow programmed at a young age to accept these invasions of privacy.

I confess, I wasn't much different.

Although I did start getting regular physicals after I turned 50, I never really expected them to do much more than check my oil, kick my tires and tell me to eat better.

One of those visits, however, might have saved my life.

In a recent physical, my blood work showed an elevated PSA (prostate specific antigen). To be safe, my doctor sent me to a urologist, who said, just to be safe, I should get a biopsy of the prostate.

I balked. The idea of sending a probe up my butt to snip pieces of my prostate didn't sound like much fun. I had heard horror stories. The word "excruciating" came to mind.

While I was busy coming up with reasons to put off this procedure, my doctor said the right thing.

"We can knock you out," he said calmly.

"Oh," I said, having run out of excuses. "OK, let's do it."

Anesthesia Annie

The No. 1 thing guys hate is pain.

The No. 2 thing guys hate is pain.

We look tough, act tough, think tough, but we're weenies. If we can put something off until later, we will.

Some guys put off having regular checkups because they don't like the digital examinations that doctors perform to check for enlargement of the prostate gland.

The mere mention of a biopsy activates the full complement of male-avoidance protocol.

Most men I talk to say they would rather play rugby on razor blades than go through this procedure. The whole idea is disgusting and we'd rather not.

Plus, it can hurt like hell.

But I'm here to tell you there is an angel of mercy, and her name is Anesthesia Annie.

She slipped a needle into the top of my right hand, smiled sweetly and put me down like a horse with a broken leg.

The next thing I knew, it was all over and I felt nothing.

A deadly mistake

That's the good news.

The bad news is my biopsy came back positive, which means I have prostate cancer. That means I have to face the options: do nothing, which is stupid; radiation therapy, which may or may not get it all; surgery, which is considered the gold standard.

But worse news would have been not finding it when we did and not doing anything about it. That's a deadly mistake.

Prostate cancer can and will kill you. But you have to find it early and do something about it. There are several options, but none of them work if you ignore the problem and hope it goes away. It won't.

So, if your doctor says the biopsy word, you immediately should ask if it can be done under anesthesia.

If the answer is no, ask another doctor.

Next week: Johns Hopkins and the Potentate of Prostates.

More information

For more information on prostate cancer or for a listing of local support groups, call the American Cancer Society's Charleston office at 744-1922.

Reach Ken Burger at kburger@postandcourier.com or 937-5598.