Pandora's Dox

 

This happens to me often. I prepare for a do it yourself job, either on my car or in the house. I look at the job and decide what tools I will need. So let’s say the job requires a flat head screwdriver and that’s all. I get a flat head screwdriver and proceed. Within minutes I realize I’ll need another tool, like maybe pliers. So it’s back to the tool cabinet for the pliers. An hour later I’ve dragged out the entire tool cabinet for the job and I’m cursing up a storm. I thought it would be a simple fix. A job that would take maybe five minutes. It never does.

Back in August I was having trouble urinating, especially at night. I would get up almost every hour on the hour. I would stand there in front of the toilet knowing I had to go, but nothing would happen. So I made an appointment with an urologist. I figured he would give me pills like the ones they used to advertise on television. You know, the one where the guy on the golf course has to stop at every hole and pee in the bushes. I got the pills, but the doctor also took a urine sample.

“The report shows that your urine is abnormal. So I’d like you to get a cat scan.”

I got the cat scan.

“The cat scan appears to show abnormalities in your prostate. I’d like to do a cystoscopy”

A what? It was then explained that a tiny camera would be shoved up my pee hole, all the way up through my prostate and into my bladder. I got the cystoscopy. It was not fun, but at least I got to see the inside of my wiener and bladder on a giant video screen.

“The cystoscopy looked fine, but the urinalysis still comes up abnormal. I’d like for you to get an MRI.”

I got the MRI.

“MRI shows that your prostate may have some malignant areas. I’d like to do a biopsy. We go in through your anus and take twelve samples.”

I got the biopsy. It was awful. That’s all I’m going to say about it. After the biopsy the doctor sat me down and said this.

“I noticed while looking at the MRI that your right kidney is not working. It looks like it hasn’t worked in a few years. Also, it appears to have the beginnings of a malignancy. I think it should be removed.”

So I agreed, and this week I went to my doctor for the pre-surgery clearance exam. He gave me an EKG while I was there.

“I’m afraid the EKG says that you might have had a heart attack sometime in the past. You will need to get an echocardiogram.”

Heart attack? Maybe when we were going through some mountains in the old PT Cruiser, and Mark was driving? Anyway, I got the echocardiogram today. While I lay there on my side getting the echocardiogram, the tech told me all about her UTI problems… in detail. Finally the UTI story was finished.

“All done. You’re fine. No evidence of any heart attack.

Sadly it’s not over yet. I still have the surgery ahead.  All I wanted was to pee.

Pooping in Reverse

 

I’m not familiar with lady parts, but I do know the ladies sometimes have to go through difficult visits with doctors sometimes. So I’m not looking for any sympathy from them here. This is just a story about what I went through today. I do know quite a bit about man parts. Being a man and a gay man at that, I will accept a small bit of sympathy from the men.

I had an appointment with the urologist today. A procedure was to be performed involving my prostate. It seems that organ is now twice the size of normal and the doctor wanted to do a biopsy. Okay, I was up for that until the doctor informed me that it would be performed by reaching the prostate through my rectum. I am not a fan of things going up my butt… (Didn’t he say he was gay? Yes, but despite what you may see in the movies and in gay porn videos, not all gay men like things up the butt.)

Here is how it went. The first nurse instructed me to drop my pants, to take it all off. She then gave me a shot of antibiotics in my leg, and I was told to sit there for about fifteen minutes while the shot took effect. So I sat there, butt naked from the waist down, staring at the strange and scary looking instruments the nurse had laid out on the table in front of me. Needles, long tubular gizmos, and other things that looked like alien probes. By the time the doctor came in I was fully stressed. “Okay, lay on your left side and pull your knees up as far as you can.” I obeyed and the doctor continued, “This part will feel like you are pooping, but in reverse. Just relax.” I tried as he stuck one of those instruments up my bunghole. I was not happy, but I gritted my teeth and kept quiet. For a few minutes I could feel something moving around in there, as if a rodent had found a new home and was investigating every nook and cranny. The doctor told me I would hear twelve clicks. That would be the instrument collecting the biopsy samples.

“Click…  click… click… click…”

Four clicks and I was getting hot. My hands were tingling and becoming numb. My mouth went dry as the Sahara. I squeaked out, “I think I’m fainting… something’s wrong…” It is not a good sign when you realize the doctor is checking your pulse and the nurse is putting a cold wet towel on your forehead. I seriously thought I was dying. I was not, and I did not faint. Apparently the doctor felt I wasn’t going to die and he continued.

“Click… click… click… click… click… click… click… click.”

The biopsy part was done. I put on my pants and the doctor started to tell me about the MRI I had two months ago. What he told me had nothing to do with my prostate. What he told me was that my right kidney is dead. It isn’t working and probably hasn’t in a few years. He showed me on the MRI screen how it had atrophied and there was no connection to the bladder anymore. He wants to remove that kidney. So there is the bad news, especially for anybody in my family who may need one. Nobody is getting a kidney from me.

Urethra

 

No.... That's Aretha

When men grow old and certain parts of them begin to wear out, doctor visits become their new social scene. An unfortunate result of growing old, and at seventy four I now qualify, is that a man's prostate gland begin to enlarge. When that happens urinating becomes difficult, yet for some reason also becomes more frequent. After many nights of getting up almost exactly every hour, on the hour to pee, I made an appointment with an urologist. Not just because I have to pee so often, but because when I try to pee, it's almost impossible to get the pee started. It's in there. It wants to come out, but apparently my prostate hasn't got the message and won't open the gates. (I'd like to know where was that control when I was a kid and woke up most mornings in a very moist bed.)

So that's what I did this morning. I saw the doctor. It was not fun. You would think sitting on an exam table for half an hour, alone, with no pants on, waiting for the doctor to come in would be the worst of it. That was bad, but not as bad as when the doctor shoved a camera up my pee hole. When I was told that was going to happen, all kind of fears flooded my mind. How big was this camera? I know how small my pee hole is, and I was imagining a VHS Camcorder. Once the doctor convinced me that they now make very tiny cameras, the procedure began.

"It'll feel kind of like you're urinating as we begin."

It did, except it felt like the urine was going the wrong way and my angry urethra and prostate did not like that. Oh, also the doctor did not find it funny when I told him that I'd rather be getting a root canal than laying on the exam table with a camera up my wiener while an audience of nurses watched. Which brings me to the only part of this whole ordeal I found entertaining. The giant wide screen video that allowed me to watch as we traveled through the tunnel, past the gates of the prostate, and into the bladder. I got to see the inner me, and as the doctor said, "It all looks good."

Dog Food

 

I don't think of myself as old, at least not until lately. This morning it became obvious to me as I walked through the dining room, hacking up phlegm and farting at the same time. Nothing says old man like bodily sound effects. One thing about growing old that I've been scrupulously trying to avoid, is falling down. Sure, I've fallen down before, like a sack of potatoes dropped from a step ladder. But I've been doing that for years, mostly because of my weak ankles. Step on a brick, I'm down. Step in a hole, I'm down. Dogs see a cat run across the street, I'm down. What I don't do, is fall down for no reason while walking through the house. I don't just lose my balance and fall. At least not from a standing position.

For years I slept in a bed with a man (Mark), two dogs, and a cat or two. This always led to me having but a sliver of mattress for myself next to the edge of the bed. Now I have only one dog that sleeps in my bed. A very small eleven pound pup that seems to take up as much room as my old ninety pound dog, Chandler did. This morning around four thirty, I woke up with the sudden urge to pee. Not unusual, I had already got up and went to the bathroom twice before during the night. This time I rolled over to put my legs on the floor not realizing I was already at the edge of the bed. In a flash I was on the floor. Pain was immediate. Blood came next. Yelling the word fuck, over and over again, soon followed. I fell out of bed. I hit my chest on the corner of the night table leaving a bruised lump above my left nipple. It was from my left arm that the blood dribbled out onto the floor. I lay there for about a minute cursing loudly before slowly dragging myself up and off to the bathroom. As I stood there in pain before the toilet, peeing, Scout and Daisy watched hoping that this meant it was time to feed them. So that's what I did. I stayed up and fed and walked the dogs. Dogs don't care if you fall and almost kill yourself. If I had died and nobody discovered my body, they surely would have waited at least a day before deciding I was edible.

My Butt

 

I am a connoisseur of seats. Theater seats, restaurant seats, bar stools, church pews (They suck), chairs in my own house, and any other place I may decide to rest my weary ass. Two things I cannot stand. Bar stools that have uneven legs and wobble, and bar stools with no backrest. Of course that's only two things about bar stools I don't like. I also don't like chairs, stools, and seats that lean you forward. I hate it when I feel like I'm going to side off. My eye doctor's waiting room is like that. In fact, every doctor's office I go to seems to have chairs that have that little incline that feels like you will slide off. My friend, Doug, often invites me out for a beer. I don't go. I make up excuses because the seating in bars is terrible. I used to go to the theater often. Musicals that Mark dragged me to (I love that he did that.) But most theater seats are built for tiny little old ladies, which I am not. Not tiny, not little. That's why in my own house, I invested in a La-Z-Boy recliner. It's pretty good and puts me to sleep during White Sox games, but that's not my favorite seat. Best seat in the house, or I should say in the garage, is my car. Ford figured it out and put a great seat in the Fusion. Good lumbar support, variable pitch forward and back, and moves far enough back for my long legs. Now, if only they had drive-in dive bars.  

Pretty, pretty sure I was wrong

 

I didn't start watching Curb Your Enthusiasm until sometime in the third season. So recently I started watching it again from the first episode. Funny thing is, I can seriously relate to Larry David. Sometimes he does what he thinks is the right thing and it blows up in his face.

My lawn was getting pretty high and we had a nice dry day so I got out the old lawn mower. It's a good lawn mower. I bought it from my neighbor a few doors down and have got more than my money's worth out of it. Which is good, because I actually like mowing the grass. I find satisfaction in taking an unruly yard and turning it into a nice, neat patch of green. Anyway, as I was mowing across the front of the house I noticed that my neighbor's lawn was even taller than mine. It's the guy who I bought the mower from. About a year ago they took him away in an ambulance because he had a stroke. Also, he's older than me, so he's really old. I stopped for a moment looking out over his lawn and thought, what the hell. I kept going and cut his grass along with mine. I was glad I could help.

About an hour later I saw him out there with his lawn mower. I went out and asked, "Didn't I do it right?" I'm not completely sure what he said to me. He has a very thick Eastern European accent. But reading his face and picking up on a few of his words I realized he was very pissed off at me. I sputtered a bit, telling him that I was only trying to help. Then I apologized and went home. That was three days ago. Haven't seen him since. I sure hope I didn't give him another stroke.

(Cue the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme.)

Ay, Day

 

On my birthday in 2020, I bought a 1929 Model A. I enjoyed tinkering with it, driving it, and just having it. Recently I realized I had done as much with that car as I wanted to do and I sold it. The buyer was a nice old guy in South Carolina, and I offered to deliver it to him for a good price. Last Monday my brother Gary and I loaded the car onto a trailer to be towed by his pickup truck. I threw the two dogs, Scout and Daisy into the back seat, and off we went into the deep south. I know that Scout doesn't like riding in a car, because she pants like a huffing steam engine the whole time. I figured that after she got used to it, she would stop. She did not. Eight hours into the trip and Scout was still chugging away. By the third day of driving, on our way home, she finally gave in and took a nap most of the way. Daisy on the other hand, was a pretty good traveler. She just sat back there, being stoic and a bit confused over her large sister who smooshed her into a corner for most of the trip.

One small problem with driving cross country with dogs, is finding the right motel that allows pets. I was a bit surprised that our second motel had white bed spreads that the dogs immediately jumped onto. Cute little paw prints that I'm sure will come out in the wash. Also, motels that let you bring dogs into a room with all white bedding aren't usually the finest. That second place had some sketchy people hanging out in the parking lot, and the first floor smelled like cigarettes. But it's the south, so people smoking was not a surprise. Then there was the lady who checked us in at the first motel we stayed in. It was around eleven in the evening when we checked in. I was very tired and when the short, round lady checking us in said "Ay day." I stared back at her, "What?"  "Ay day!" Again, I had no idea what she was saying. "I'm sorry, say again please." "Ay day, ah need your ay day." Then I realized, she was speaking Southern. A variation on the English language that you can usually figure out without an interpreter.

Red Boxer Shorts

 

How I imagine him

Other than the parking lot of Wolfy's hotdog stand across Peterson Avenue, it is rare to see a Chicago Police car cruising the streets around here. That's because we don't have a very high crime rate compared to other neighborhoods in the city. Unless you count the lady who was murdered, cut up, and stuffed in her freezer by a disgruntled tenant half a block from my house. (I try to be very good to my tenant, Dennis. At least he pays his rent on time.) Anyway, I noticed yesterday that at least four police cars had slowly cruised down our street in the morning. When I talked to my upstairs neighbor about that, he dismissed it as probably nothing. Just cutting through on the way to Dunkin' Donuts. I was skeptical because Dunkin' Donuts is the other direction. So I checked the neighborhood Facebook page. Sure enough, everybody was talking about it. A man in nothing but a pair of red boxer shorts was going around ringing people's doorbells. One lady even mentioned that she had seen him sleeping in her backyard on one of her garden chairs. Apparently the guy was a bit nuts, and when they caught up with him they took him off in an ambulance. So we're safe from guys in red boxer shorts, for the time being. All I want to know is, what's wrong with my house? Why wasn't I included? After all, it's been a long time since a man in boxer shorts has rung my bell.

What he probably looked like

Dumpster Fire

 

About four years ago the building immediately to the north of me was sold and remodeled. It was gutted to the bricks and redone in a clean, characterless manner. Very well done, but with none of the beauty of what had been there for a hundred years. While that remodel was going on there were a series of dumpsters parked on the street in front of that building. I didn't mind. It meant somebody was trying to make the place better. A month ago the building immediately to the south of my building was sold. My wonderful neighbors had to move out and that building was now being gutted down to the brick walls. Once again, there is a dumpster sitting in the street filled with plaster, shattered wood, and other debris. I like it because when I walk the dogs, I can now toss the shit filled plastic bags right up into that dumpster. I don't have to go around to the alley.

Yesterday, my friend and tenant on the second floor put a frozen pizza in the oven. It was a Nick and Vito's pizza, which I highly recommend. The problem was that there was something else in the oven that Dennis forgot about and that something else started burning. Smoke filled the apartment, the smoke alarms went off, and Dennis came downstairs to inform me that there was a fire in his oven. There wasn't any fire, but his apartment was thick with smoke. I opened all the windows, turned on the ceiling fans, and waited for the smoke to dissipate. While waiting, another smoke alarm went off. "Beep, beep, beep, beep...." But it was not in the apartment. I went downstairs to see if it was in my apartment. No, not there. I went into the basement to see if the smoke detectors down there were beeping. No, not there either. Yet it continued, "Beep, beep, beep, beep...." I finally figured out where the hell the beeping was coming from. It was out in the dumpster that was full of all the debris from my neighbor's building. Apparently the guys who were doing the demolition had ripped the smoke detectors out and tossed them into that dumpster. There had been a lot of smoke from Dennis's pizza, but I had no idea.

Dog Time

 

I don't really like Daylight Savings Time. It's stupid. Really, what's wrong with Standard Time? The sun comes up earlier in the morning, which is a good thing for people trying to wake up and go to work or school. Also, who the hell needs daylight at nine in the evening? We have streetlights and electricity everywhere. Anyway, that's not what I'm going to bitch about here.

It's the dogs. My plan was to let them continue to think it was still pre-Daylight Savings Time so I could sleep an hour longer. Scout and Daisy would have no idea the crazy humans had turned the clocks forward one hour. So that was the plan. Two weeks into the time change and it has turned out that at least one of my dogs is very smart. I'm not sure which one figured it out, but for the last few days Daisy has been getting up at five thirty in the morning, walking across my legs and jumping down off the bed. This wakes me up. When I look down at the floor, there's Scout sitting there staring at me while Daisy sits in the hallway making her, get the fuck out of bed, noise. "Hurumph.... hurumph...  I fucking said, hurumph! Now get the fuck up and take us out and feed us." (Yes, my dogs curse. Not sure where they learned that.) I don't know what tipped them off. I figure at least one of them can count, or maybe can tell time. It could be the old wind up clock on the fireplace mantel. It has a gong that counts out the hours on the hour. My guess is it's Scout that can count and knows what it means when the windup clock gongs five times. But then again, Daisy knows that when Alexa tells me my breakfast is ready, it's time to run into the kitchen.

Pizza Day

 

Wednesday has become my pizza day. I usually buy a good quality frozen pizza at the Jewel while doing my weekly shopping. When I get home, I bake it, and then eat the whole damn thing. I start out with good intentions. Eat half of it for lunch and then save half for breakfast the next day. (You know you've all had leftover pizza for breakfast at least once. Don't lie.) Seriously, there are a few very good frozen pizza brands out there. Nick and Vitos, Corner Pub, and the one I had today. Brew Pub pizza. All thin crust, Chicago, old school style pizza. I even cut it into squares like I did when I worked for Ray's Pizza almost sixty years ago.

I was fifteen years old when my neighbor who owned Ray's offered me a job. One dollar an hour and all the beef sandwiches and RC Cola I could consume in one shift. I was fifteen, so that was a lot. A lot of money, RC Cola, and beef. Thinking back I realize what made the pizza taste so good. Part of my job was mixing the pizza dough. Flour, eggs, yeast, oil, and water, mixed in a big dough mixer. Before turning on the big mixer, I would have to pre-mix the ingredients in by hand. When the dough was finished in the mixing machine, I had to dig it out of the giant mixing bowl by hand and plop it down in an oil soaked wooden box. There it would sit to rise for awhile before putting it in the refrigerator. Later I would have to take the dough and measure out little balls of it to a certain weight, each one a future pizza. Yes, the pizza from Ray's was very good. Only a couple of problems. Fifteen year old Alan did all the prep work with no hair net, no mask, and no latex gloves. That was my sweat, my hair, and my sneezes in that dough that made it so delicious. One more thing. I loved the well done mozzarella cheese on top of the pizzas as they came out of the oven. So I would snatch a big gob off the top of the pizzas and eat it right then and there. Sadly a few of Ray's customers got pizza with half the cheese missing. Fifteen year old Alan was a little asshole.

The Can

 

So three weeks ago it started snowing around here and we were buried under one and a half inches of wet snow. Oh the horrors. To add to the misery, for a whole week after that the temperatures never got warmer than ten degrees above zero. Thank the Lord, or Tom Skilling, after that the weather changed and we've had nearly two weeks of temperatures in the mid thirties to upper forties. It's like we're in Florida, but without the flying cockroaches. Of course that means all the snow has melted and piles of trash have appeared in my front yard. Yesterday I went out with my orange Home Depot bucket and my "Grabber Reacher Tool for Seniors" as it is described on Amazon, and picked up all the trash.

Let's go back to the one and a half inches of snow and sub freezing temperatures. On the first day of that terrible time I took in a friend's dog, Eddie. That means I had three dogs needing to poop and I was not going to take them out for a walk. No way was I going out in that mess with those dogs. So I would open the back door of the porch, let the little fur angels run out there, and watch them poop and pee all over the place. One good thing about Eddie, he always poops in the same spot. Bad thing about Eddie, his poops are gigantic. But never mind because all the dog poop would immediately disappear as their turds melted down through the snow. Unfortunately, snow melts and dog poop will still be there.

I have a six gallon trash can out by the alley. When I clean up the dog poo in the yard I put it in the can. Yesterday I cleaned up the yard. The six gallon can filled up fast, which meant I would have to transfer it to the big garbage bin so the City of Chicago could pick it up today. It was heavy and the bag I had lined the can with ripped open. Let's just say the shit almost hit the fan. Luckily I came prepared with a giant black trash bag that captured it and I was able to get it all in the big bin for the truck to pick up today. This is the reason we tip the garbage men around the holidays.

Comfort

 

I was in a doctor's office waiting room last week, helping out a friend. While he was in having a procedure, I took a seat in one of the very comfortable looking chairs provided. For the first few minutes I was fine. Then I realized the seat was canted forward, maybe one degree off the level. You see I have a very sophisticated sense of comfort and I can feel such things. A grain of sand in my shoe feels like a rock. If I sleep in the same spot in my bed too many times, I can feel the divot I have created. I have a very good mattress, but I can feel it. Anyway, sitting in that waiting room became unbearable after awhile. It reminded me of going to parties when I was young. One in particular, thrown by one of my crazy friends, came to mind. I had never been to his apartment before, so how was I to know he had no furniture. He had a stereo, a cat, and a mattress on the floor. That was it. I didn't stay long. Besides, like I said he was crazy. He was known for bringing his cat to gay bars and dancing with it. Also, he spent some time in jail for threatening to kill a United States Senator. I asked him to never call me again after that.  

I find that in my older age I need comfort and won't put up with hard seats, bad shoes, and parties with no furniture. Yet for nearly one whole year I lived on a farm with a bunch of hippies. We all slept on what you might call 'roadside' mattresses in one big room, on the floor. Seriously, I have no idea where those mattresses came from. I slept like a baby back then. That was over fifty years ago. Now I avoid being on the floor for any reason. Mostly because of the intense effort it takes to get me back up on my feet. Besides, that's where the dogs hang out. Lots of hair down there.