Passing Out Parade

[Ed: It’s necessary to suspend any smutty schoolboy humour for this one.]

A couple of weeks ago, an appointment with the specialist nurse at my hospital’s urology clinic turned up. D-Day was Thursday and H-hour was 1:00 PM. Though the purpose of the meeting had not been made clear, the original message did included the immortal phrase, “bring the missus along”, so off we both went.

The prostate is surrounded by nerves. One of the functions of the nerves is – how shall I put this delicately? – to control one’s erectile function. The surgeon performing a radical prostatectomy will attempt to preserve those nerves intact [Ed: that’s very considerate of him.] but, even if successful, the nerves tend to get bruised during the operation. Hardly surprising, really. This bruising is detrimental to one’s aforementioned erectile function. Actually, even prior to getting anywhere near a surgeon, just having an enlarged prostate can put pressure on those nerves and the erectile function can already be detrimentally affected. This, it transpired, was the subject of our meeting.

Hopefully, eventually things return to normal but, fear not, medical assistance is available. The medical assistance comes in two guises: as drugs (the most well-known variety being Viagra) and/or as a mechanical device. [Ed: WHAT!?] The device in question is a vacuum pump. After the specialist nurse (he’s male, BTW) had given us a swift intro to the drugs available, he led us off to another chap who had turned up to give us “a demonstration of the vacuum pump”. Scary spiders!

OK, so the idea is that one introduces one’s, er, penis/old man/dick/todger into the vacuum pump and begins manually pumping, preferably quite gently. The vacuum so induced takes over where the temporarily interrupted Mother Nature left off and replaces the normal erectile function. Got the idea?

“So, let’s try it – stand up and drop your trousers”, said my new acquaintance, from the relative comfort of a hospital chair.

Gulp! “Er, OK”, I replied with forced bravado as I stood before him debagged, as it were. 😳

After a little lubrication, I was engaged and the pump was in operation. I should point out that, though it was my anatomy in the pump, it was my new acquaintance, rapidly becoming intimate friend, actually doing the pumping. It was a weird and, I have to say, somewhat uncomfortable sensation; I felt like a balloon about to burst. My experienced pump operator assured me that this sensation would die down – I’d get used to it.

While digesting this latest of the day’s reassuring messages, I began to feel a little strange so I sat down.

“You’re fine, still a decent colour …”

The next thing I was aware of was a loud whistling in my ears. I couldn’t see anything but, slowly, some sensation of light began to return though not accompanied initially by any recognisable shapes. Where was I and what had been happening last time I knew about anything? The whistling began to abate and a few vague shapes began to form. More light. A man’s face appeared before me. Ah, the hospital – my new intimate friend. I was on my side in the recovery position.

[Ed: OK, you can slip back into juvenile humour mode, now.]

There’s a very old schoolboy joke that concerns a well-endowed chap who passes out every time he gets an erection because there isn’t enough blood for both of them. Boom, boom, Mr. Roy!

Even though I was still recovering from fainting myself, I just couldn’t resist reminding my personal pump operator of that joke. He looked a little quizzical. I can’t think why. No sense of humour, some people.

Never in a million years did I imagine that the joke was based on reality. 😆