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[PA Comic] Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - The Snip Within
Geth
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
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You look like him!
He didn't either.
Please, have some malt liquor! If not for yourself, then for the people who love you!
That face gobbles all the cocks.
I prefer "gentleman's area."
As a side note - I'm going to schedule mine based on a week good games come out - since I'm going to be sitting around for a few days I might as well have something new to play.
At the time I was taking 0.5mg a Klonopin / clonazepam twice a day for what they called "generalized anxiety disorder". Jill was my wife.
Writeup:
anyone who has ever used the phrase "too much information!" or anyone
who feels much sympathy-pain seeing a guy get kicked in the balls will
want to punt this message. seriously.
i'm not kidding.
in preparation for this, please recall the scene from "there's
something about mary" immediately following the franks-and-beans
bathroom scene where they take ben stiller to the ambulance. also,
recall Dr Evil from austin powers II in his out-of-control spinning
chair. also, my resting heartrate is 60-70. ready?
so on tuesday me and jill went to a known-good urologist to talk to
him about getting me a vasectomy. we watched a film from like 1965
about vasecomies and talked with the doc some. he asked us some
serious questions about our motivation for this, gave me a quick exam,
and had me sign some papers. and scheduled us for today (friday).
(the way a vasectomy works is the doc gives a local anesthetic, makes
an inscision on either side of the top-front of the scrotum, snips a
cm out of each vas deferen tube, clips them, and sews up or surgically
staples the inscision. since it's a small shallow cut it heals pretty
quick, theoretically)
so the plan for friday is that after midnight thursday night i don't
eat anything. then one hour before i come in i take 10mg of valium,
and then i'm good and relaxed and they do the procedure at 7:30am
(it's supposed to take ~20 minutes).
so i wake up at 6:30, take the valium, and hop in the shower. it
occurs to me that i've never taken valium before but the pharmacist
(known good - also, friend) said it should be fine with the klonopin i
take. i may get even more knocked out than usual, but they won't
combine badly. as hydrocodone, codeine, and benadryl don't make me at
all sleepy i thought it might be the opposite - that valium also
wouldn't work, but whatever. i'm not nervous anyway.
so we drive to the doc's and get there at 7:20. they let us in and
take me to the operation room (this is outpatient, not a hospital).
(note - speech in quotes, events in text, thoughts in parens)
they have a chair/bed thing with stirrups like for a gynocologist.
they put me in a hospital gown and i hop up on the table. I feel
nothing from the valium yet. oh well - maybe soon.
i lean back in the chair and a nurse grabs a remote control thing and
says "let me get the bed comfortable and raise the stirrups a bit" and
the back of the chair drops flat WHAM. "are you ok?!? i'm sorry - this
table is old - they said they fixed it!" i say "i'm fine, it's ok."
and i hold on tight to the sides of the bed as she continues fiddling
with the controller and the bed jerks up and down and tilts but the
stirrups won't move. so i say "let me just try the stirrups" and they
feel ok so i tell her everything is perfect (please just stop fucking
with the table...). then she leaves and another nurse comes in and
puts a heartrate/blood-oxygen monitor on my finger and sets the
monitor next to my head. my heartrate is like 110 or something.
then the nurse sists down and gets some of the trays of shiny scalpels
and needles ready. i see by the clock it's 7:45. hmmm... still no
valium. the assistant says "feeling the valium?" i say "no, but it's
ok, i'm not nervous".
the doc comes in after about ten minutes, shakes my hand, and sits
down and cleans me all up with iodine and some other cold liquid. the
doc says "nervous?" and i say "no. valium's not doing anything
though". he asks when i took it and i say about an hour and a half
ago. he says "oh. it should be working... are you ok?" i say "sure".
so he fiddles with some tools and i say "one shot for the local or
two?" and he says "three on each side - two short-acting and one long"
great...
so he starts on the right (my right). he says "ok, first shot..."
and i feel a needle go in. feels like any other needle, not as bad as
an IV needle. he pulls the needle out and rubs the tissue (skin)
around some. he swaps needles and says "second shot..." another
needle goes in. same deal for the third. i don't feel any
kick-in-the-balls pain, just the sting of the needles. so that's
good.
then he takes a scalpel and leans down and SEARING PAIN OF BLADE
CUTTING FLESH. "ow!" i say. "can you feel that!?!" he says. "uh, yes"
"ok, sorry about that - let me give you some more of the local..." i
feel a needle go in twice. "ok, here we go..." he says. SEARING PAIN
OF BLADE CUTTING FLESH. "ow!" i say. he says "uh... ok, hold on..."
and he bathes the cut and surrounding area with something and i very
vaguely feel a needle a couple more times. "let's wait and make sure
this time - i'm really sorry, not in 30 years have i had someone feel
the scalpel..."
we wait and then he says "ok, test. can you feel that?" and i feel a
needle touching skin. "yes" i say. he shakes his head and gives
another injection. waits. "how about this?" "no" "this?" "no"
"ok, here we go..."
so at this point pretty much every muscle in my entire body is just
about as tight as it can get. i'm trying to stay still - i think they
could have removed the stirrups and i wouldn't have moved...
so i feel slight pressure as he makes the cut but no pain (much).
fucking hell. then he says "do you normally bleed a lot when you go
to the dentist?" (well, you did cut me THREE TIMES) "no..." "ok,
you're bleeding a little more than usual. just checking. no
problem."
so then he swaps tools around some, cut, snip, clamp. he's doing a
bit of comentary as he goes so i know what he's doing. he says "ok,
now cauterizing the vas..." and there's a sound of sizzling and smoke
rising from between my legs. i'm prepared if he says "don't worry
about the smell of your burning flesh" to say "i got to smell my
burning cornea when they used a laser on my eyes." but i decide i
don't want to gross him out.
after he cuts the piece of vas deferen out he holds it up for me to
see (like, holds it up to my face). it looked like a bit of fat from
a steak, sorta. the tube was off-white but had some blood on it. it
was larger in diameter than i expected - maybe like a strand of 16 or
18-gauge wire with insulation. i say "cool!"
after showing my the tube he says "ok, i'm gonna close it up now.
stapler!" and the nurse hands him a staple-gun-looking-thing and he
says "three staples..." ka-ckunk! ka-ckunk! ka-ckunk! it sounds just
like a standard paper stapler. i don't feel anything (from the
stapler, i mean - i'm feeling _all kinds of shit_ as my body is
demanding to know why the FUCK can we FEEL the fucking SCALPEL
AAEEEIII!!!!)
anyway, time for the left side...
he does the first needle of anesthetic, no problem. the second needle
feels like a kick in the balls. this time i'm doing comentary, too.
as the first needle went in i said "needle going in - ok" then "needle
going in - ow, that felt like a kick in the balls" in case that is
useful to him.
after the 3 needles he does the test where he pokes with a needle and
i say if it hurts. i err on the side of "yes i feel that" and take a
spare shot in the left side to avoid the scalpel pain. he says "ok,
cutting" and i feel the scalpel sliding, pressure, but no pain (much).
he does the left side just like the right, showing me the tube he cut
out and doing the commentary. sizzle sizzle, ka-ckunk! ka-ckunk!
ka-ckunk! and he's done. as the nurse is cleaning me up some and
putting on gauze he gets up and appologizes again for the pain and i
says something like "no problem!" as i'm starting to shake from
holding my entire body rigid for 30 minutes.
so then a different nurse (the one who drove the table) comes in with
jill and the nurse says "can you sit up? i know the valium is
pretty strong..." (yeah, wHATEver)
the main nurse has cleaned me up some and helps me put on an athletic
supporter to hold the gauze in and keep the incisions from stretching.
i feel no pain as they put the supporter on. the nurse says "just sit
there as long as you need to and we'll help you stand up when you're
ready." so i just stand up on my own and walk over (bowlegged) to
where my clothes are.
then the main nurse asks if i want some privacy getting dressed. it
occurs to me to say "you just helped him cut up my testicles - i don't
care if you watch me put on my clothes..." but instead i say "uh, ok"
and just continue getting dressed with jill's help.
jill asked me how i felt and i said "pretty jittery - tense - the
valium never worked. maybe valium has the opposite effect on me."
yeah, or maybe i'm just in shock.
we go upstairs and i pay my copay and we schedule an appointment for
them to yank the staples on wednesday. the whole time we're up there
the nurse keeps telling me i can sit down if i'm dizzy but i feel
totally wired and shaky - fight-or-flight with cramped muscles. i sit
down anyway after doing the paperwork and drink some juice.
then we leave.
i spent the whole day in bed taking a vicaden every 2 hours
(pharmacist said that was ok if it doesn't put me to sleep). also, at
the suggestion of the nurse, we rested a pack of frozen vegetables on
the gauge to keep the swelling down. it didn't hurt at all.
i read and dozed all day. i defrosted some corn, some green beans,
and a pack of mixed vegetables and then it was afternoon and we quit
with the cold stuff. only this evening after quitting the vicaden do
i feel occasional twinges of a blow to the balls.
not as bad as the scalpel, tho.
:whistle:
I actually think the most uncomfortable part was the shaving of the nard zone (located to the lower anterior of the dick zone, for you anatomy folks) by the female nurse, who happened to be a 20-something curvy redhead... I ended up telling my wife that the Dr. did it.
Nightmare material is the phrase "Damn, slipped again." It's even more special when it occurs two and a half hours into a twenty minute procedure. It took a total of three hours and I-don't-know-how-many extra shots of the local. Dr. Fumblefingers tried to do the "new" procedure (a single central incision instead of one over each vas), but lacked the dexterity to follow through.
Poke. Poke. Tug. Tug. Yank. "Whoops, almost had it that time."
He managed to snip one side as we crossed the two hour mark. At around 2:50, he gave up and made the second incision.
I held my wife's hand through the procedure. For the first little while, it was a matter of mutual comfort. For the last two hours, it was to keep her from leaping across the table to ram the scalpel in his junk for a change.
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
No kidding - here I was thinking "Little snip snip and a few days of sore gaming" - now I'm unable to get the idea of 6 needles out of my head.
*taking notes* ...and which clinic was this?
I was already pretty apprehensive about the procedure. Now? Yeah, I don't know if I could go through with it.
BTW: Crown condoms are amazing. Much better than the Trojan ultra thin ones. They don't smell as much as Trojan ones do either.
*Mine aren't 'junk', they work just fine, thank you very much!
So, I had some surgery on the dick zone. A month later I was in the hospital with three different septic infections of a variety of bacteria only found in the intestines, usually. Also walking pneumonia as a result.
People are just afraid of surgery in general, and rightfully so. We have great technology, but going into a clinic or hospital still means being exposed to human error. All kinds of potential complications from surgery.
perhaps Khoo should set up some PAXsectomy special with this Dr. Snip during PAX Prime?
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
Yea... basically everything he said +1.
I had this done back in 2004 at one of the most prestigious hospitals on the east coast ( at the time I was making good money and had excellent health care ) by a doctor who was touted as being the best in the business, and pretty much everything that happened to AXXE happened to me. In fact my experience was maybe even a little worse in terms of pain, tugging, cutting, bleeding, and the painkiller wearing off so fast that in the end the doctor was irritated because he couldn't give me anymore and he was barely done with one side.
I got the whole speech about "Oh it's no big deal" and "Oh it's not painful at all you'll just be a little sore for a day afterwords" ...ummm yea about that...NO sorry from my experience that was a load of horse manure! I had a couple teeth knocked out in a car accident along with head lacerations and a concussion that was nowhere near as painful or traumatic as getting "a little snip". Doctors and our ignorant society downplay the seriousness of this operation far too much.
It was, for me, a horrible experience. My advice to anyone seriously considering this, take a week off from everything, isolate yourself from all the idiots who have advice on this subject and ask yourself if this is what you truly want to do to yourself. In my opinion if you have ANY doubts for the love of whatever you hold dear DO NOT do it.
The procedure itself was mildly painful, but nothing severe. Two small injections and some tugging was about the extent of it. Apparently one side bled quite a bit, so the doctor had to spend some extra time there, but the pain really wasn't that bad. I would put it somewhere around "getting a tattoo" on the painful-things-done-to-your-body scale. The recovery was somewhat more painful, but I never needed anything more than ice, acetaminophen, and ibuprofen. Every body is different, and every doctor is different, but my doctor was good and my body handled it well, so I have no complaints.
The real issue, at least from my perspective, with getting a vasectomy is the psychological aspect. This is a Big Decision, and one that cannot and should not be taken lightly. The procedure isn't always reversible, and even when it is, reversal doesn't always work. It is PERMANENT and shouldn't be thought of as anything else. That being said, I couldn't be happier with my decision. I do not want to father any more children. This procedure allowed me to put that under my control.
But again, I cannot overstate this: This is PERMANENT. It is a BIG DEAL. This will fundamentally change your life. After this procedure, you will be sterile. There will not be another child born that has your genetic material, ever.
Also he kept making Star Trek reference.
"While your down that, can you add a few inches?"
"No, but I can take 5 off"
"No thanks, I don't want it cut in half."
Occasional tugging that felt like a light tap on the balls.
It was such a simplistic, easy procedure it was done in a doctor's office under local anesthesia
and I was so bored during it, I was actually live-updating Twitter from my cellphone while it was happening.
here, let me dig it up:
8:02 AM Oct 15th
My pelvis and groin are now being painted with warm antiseptic goo by an awkward nurse. Good lord I'm high.
8:04 AM Oct 15th
Oh hey! That's not in the brochure! I know have a rubber band round my rook, clipped to the bottom of my shirt so it's out of the way.
8:12 AM Oct 15th
Oh sweet Christ in heaven, the injection of the local anasthetic is so painful I almost cried. Wouldn't wish this on someone I hate.
8:14 AM Oct 15th
He is now lasering a hole in my sack. There's some funky smell. I ask him what it is. He says "that's the smell of your genitals burning."
8:16 AM Oct 15th
Now he's in the, applying titanium microclamps half an inch apart on the vas. Now that he is done that, he takes out the laser seals it off.
8:19 AM Oct 15th
Aaaand I'm done! Still high as fuck and frozen, will probably feel fine later.
8:20 AM Oct 15th
the post operation stuff was easy. I didn't have any stitches or stables or anything, because it was one of them tiny hole surgeries where they burn the hole shut, so i just a had a little scab with a bandage on it.
the pain wasn't so bad. little bit of tenderness on day one, no real swelling, day 2 and 3 had a mild feeling of the pain and sick stomach feeling you get after a boot to the nads, but usually only when i jostled it goo
after day 2 i was back to normal usage, had to be delicate at first but meh
once i started it was fine
So will having a kid.
FWIW, the vasectomy was unsuccessful. I had my second vasectomy with a different doctor and with a general anesthetic. That was WAAAY better. I went back the next week with presents for the doctor and his entire staff.
Instead, I have cats, and I wuv my fwuffy kitties
I am aware of this. Doubly aware even, since I have two. Both fathering a child and making the decision to never be able to father a child are two things that will fundamentally change your life.
To be clear, I have a very positive opinion of vasectomies, and I think they're a great choice for a person that has carefully thought about the ramifications and is ready to make that decision for himself. I am 100% satisfied with my decision to get one.
I disagree. Fathering a child, yes. Not fathering a child is the default for most of a person's life unless that changes. Choosing to keep things that way is not the same.
The default (for most men) is that you can father a child. The "can" is the operative word, and removing that is the life-changing bit.
I agree that having a kid and having a vasectomy are not the same thing. They are very different and change your life in very different ways. In my own day-to-day life, having a vasectomy has not changed anything except that I don't need to buy condoms anymore and I enjoy sex more. Even so, my life is fundamentally different now, in that last year I could father a child, and now I cannot.
You have kids already. You already had kids when you made this decision, correct?
So for you, you've emotionally experienced what having a kid is like, and what it's like to add another when you've already got one.
For some, who will never nor do they want ever to experience that, it's a much easier decision to make and it doesn't have the same kind of emotional repercussions on any sort of equivalent level. Prior to 2009 I could have children, in theory. Post-2009, I could not. That changed, but how I feel about having children (do not want) has not.
For me, it was like removing my ability to spontaneously burst into song accompanied by rainbows and magical rabbits. It's not something I wanted to do, something I felt the need to do, nor will I ever particularly miss it.
It's actually incredibly easy to be ambivalent to this choice if you don't really know nor care to know what you are missing. For some people, anyway. However, treating it as if it's this grave decision that will impact your life for years to come is, I think, really frickin' rude in the end.
I was 26 years old when I decided to get a vasectomy. I had no children, and I'm engaged. I don't know if you personally understand how infuriating and presumptuous people become about you and how you feel when you make that decision in that circumstance, and it's all out of this ethereal notion that I'm somehow making a "BIIIIIIIIIIG DECISION".
No, I'm not. I'm deciding not to have to make a big choice down the road.
Going to college is a big choice. Choosing not to go to college when you have the option, but don't really want to anyway and have other priorities in your life isn't a "big decision". You're choosing not to add something to your life that you don't need to add. Not going to college is the default for many people, it's how their life is until they decide to change that or until circumstances somewhat force their hand.