Thursday, April 03, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Goldberg: Tooled

By Tod Goldberg

I'm a pretty even-keeled guy, medically speaking. I'm able to pop my own zits, remove my own slivers and reset my own broken toes. Seeing pools of my own blood, however, tends to make me a bit light-headed. So imagine my surprise last night when, during the course of the patented Goldberg Underwear Kick-in-the-Air Removal process at bedtime I noticed that my boxer-briefs were covered in blood.

I grabbed the bed for support and then plopped down face first, my head swimming in nauseated fog.

"Are you okay?" my wife asked.

"No," I said, handing her my underwear. "I think I have colon cancer."

Thirty minutes and half a roll of toilet paper wedged into my ass to stop the infernal drip later, we showed up at a packed emergency room. There were several drunks with broken arms and misshapen noses, a baby crying a colicky wail and an old man without a nose (though that wasn't his malady, merely his condition--he also had a pinky facing the wrong direction) waiting to be seen ahead of me.

"Maybe we should come back in the morning," I said.

"You're the one who thinks he's dying," my wife said.

"If I am, I don't want this to be the memory of my last night on Earth."

Before my wife could respond, the registration nurse called my name.

"What seems to be the problem?" she asked after taking down my insurance information and collecting my $25 co-pay.

"I seem to be having some serious rectal bleeding."

"Are you engaging in aggressive sex?"

"No."

"When was your last homosexual experience?"

"Never."

The nurse eyed me curiously. She looked over my shoulder and saw my wife sitting there waiting anxiously. "You know that this information is all confidential," the nurse said. I nodded. The nurse checked off several boxes, all of which doubtlessly indicated that I was withholding same-sex encounters from my wife and that I was having aggressive butt love on a regular basis.

When I returned to my seat, my wife asked, "How did it go?"

"She thinks I'm gay."

"That would explain a lot," my wife said.

"I'm dying of ass cancer and this is the conversation we're having? Shouldn't we be preparing for the worst? I don't even have a will. Shouldn't I have a will? I'm not done with the last edit of my new book, either. Are you prepared to finish my work posthumously?"

"You're overreacting."

Maybe, I thought, but the truth of the matter is that perfectly healthy men don't suddenly start bleeding out of their orifices unless they are actually not healthy, are, in fact, two feet into the grave and just maneuvering their arms around the dirt.

"The doctor will see you now," the nurse said.

My wife gave my hand a little squeeze as I was standing up to go. "Take all the TP out of your butt before the doctor sees you," she whispered.

The nurse led me down a long hallway and into a small observation room and then returned a moment later with a gown. "Doctor will want you in this," she said.

I stripped out of my clothes and slipped the gown over my naked, dripping body. A few moments later an inordinately cheery doctor of my approximate age appeared in the room with my chart in his hands.

"Says here you're having some rectal bleeding. Are you in any pain?"

"No."

"When was the last time you engaged in anal sex?"

"There wasn't a last time."

The doctor took my vitals and then gave me a general exam, asking if anything in particular hurt. Nothing did. He patted the bed. "Let's have you on your side. Good. Bring your knees to your chest so we can see what's going on down there."

There's no denying that death is scary, but the idea of having a guy shove his entire arm up your rectal cavity in an exploratory nature on your last living day is no walk in the park, either.

The doctor fussed around a few cabinets, mumbling about lubricant, before he snapped on some gloves and went to work.

"You might feel some pressure," he said as his elbow pivoted on my cheek during entry. No shit, Quincy. "Aha. I've located the issue. Hold one moment." The doctor removed his arm from me, which was a nice gesture, and then returned with a metal tool. "You have a clotted hemorrhoid that I'm going to pop out. You might find this painful."

Might? A hangnail is painful; I soon learned that a man with a flange in your ass is another level to the game. But I was cured.

After I got dressed, the doctor kindly told me how to avoid 'roids in the future and suggested I might try sitting in a warm tub twice a day for the next week.

"I'm so relieved," I said. "I thought I was dying of colon cancer."

The doctor frowned. "Stay lubricated up there and use protection and you'll be able to avoid a lot of this kind of thing in the future."