Coyote's Den

Warning: This story is about having a tumor removed by nitwits from a sensitive part of the anatomy. It contains words like scrotum, testicles, and "OUCH! GODDAMIT! FUCK! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?" If this bothers you, don't read any further.

Each time I get medical attention for something I don't think I can handle myself, after receiving the medical assistance, I decide that in future, if the same thing comes up again, I'll just do it myself. At this point, the only thing I think I'll go to the hospital for is to have a severed limb reattached. This story is an example of why.

Some of the people in my family, including myself, have a tendency toward getting small, (usually) benign fatty skin tumors. They're generally harmless, but ugly, and you don't want to keep anything with the word "tumor" in it, because sometimes they decide that peaceful co-existence is not as much fun as migrating to your lymph nodes and killing you.

When I get these somewhere that is easy for me to see or get to, I usually get out a scalpel or sharp exacto knife, and carefully remove it myself. Don't act all horrified - it's not brain surgery. Usually, when I get them, it's on my face, around my eyes, but I'm very careful, I assure you, and it's easy to see what I'm doing in the mirror. I've never had a problem with this. I'm always careful to get the whole thing.

Their favorite place to form seems to be in a damaged hair follicle. Well... with my incredible Coyote luck, one day, I was zipping up my fly, and ripped out a pubic hair out of my scrotum. This is not the end of the world, but it was an ouch. I was late for work. I then got stuck in traffic on a really hot day, in my latest vehicle-with-no-air-conditioning. I have never, once, in my life, owned a car that the air conditioning worked in for more than two weeks. When I buy a car, two things immediately happen - the air conditioning stops working, and the parking brake breaks or falls off. I am not making this up. I don't even bother to try and fix them, because they just die immediately. Anyway, in the hot car, in Georgia heat, this hair follicle got infected.

It got better, or so I thought, but a few months later, a big white lump suddenly formed in there. At the time, I didn't have all the stuff I needed to deal with it, and frankly, I was a little squeamish about cutting down there. Sure... I'll put an exacto knife next to my eye, but was cautious about my junk. I plead "Y Chromosomal Judgment Disorder." Besides, sometimes these things will go away on their own. I'll do this self-healing meditation thing my grandmother taught me (I think she saw it on Donahue), and they'll shrink and go away. Possibly they would do this without the intervention of Donahue.

I guess this one was holding out for Liberace though, and he was dead by then. It rapidly got bigger. After a while, it was the size of a large English pea. Now, as I've mentioned, these things are pretty harmless. But it was big, and ugly, and on my nuts. My partner at the time finally started nagging me about it, and not wanting to fool around with me any more. They told me that if I wasn't going to do something about it, or go to the doctor, that there would be no more heavy petting until this changed.

By this point, the thing had gotten out of hand. There was a great big artery leading to it - apparently, sometimes, tumors can shanghai nearby blood-vessels or something. So I'm figuring that maybe this requires the assistance of a professional. I have this image that I'll go to cut on it (and it's already much bigger than any of these I've ever had before), and I'll sever this little artery, and it'll be gore-city and I won't be able to see what I'm doing amid all the blood, and my nuts will fall off and everyone will make fun of me, and I'll end up on a "news of the stupid" website, with a headline like "Idiot tries to operate on own scrotum, now will never love again."

Now... keep in mind. At this point, I am working for the University of Georgia Printing Department. Not to put to fine a point on it, they paid crap. I didn't have a lot of money for this sort of thing. And taking time off work would mean getting further into the hole. So I attempt to make a Saturday appointment at my doctor's office. There were, I think, two doctor's offices I could go to, and the other one was unaffordable.

I explain that I have a small, benign, fatty skin tumor that needs to be removed. I explain that they run in my family, and are not particularly dangerous. I explain that it just needs to be taken out, it is very small, and that it is on a private portion of my anatomy. I am not shy about this sort of thing, but I am in the South, so I ask the receptionist if she needs to know specifics, or if she would prefer to have me explain to a male attendant. She assures me that nothing will bother her. So I tell her it is on my scrotum. She then acts disgusted and offended, and says "I didn't need to know that."

I can already tell, this will be fun.

Now... just so you will know, when you have something like that removed, you don't test it and then remove it. There would be no point. You take the whole thing off, and then you send it to be tested to see if it was malignant (which, if it is, you then seek further medical care, and if it wasn't, it's finished with.)

So... simple right? I explain what I have, and that I want it removed, and can I be scheduled for a biopsy/removal. They assure me this is no problem - I'll come in, they'll give me a local, and zip, I'm outta there, total fees will come to fifty for the visit, and they'll have to let me know how much the procedure will cost, but probably not much more.

So... I show up on Saturday with my roommate, partner, and then companion in life, G.. When I check in, the lady at the desk says "Yes, you do have an appointment. Now, what are you in here for?" I ask if this is not already there in my file, because I explained when I made the appointment, that I was in to have a small tumor removed. This is important, because this is the sort of thing you schedule in advance. She says "Oh, it's probably in there, but I can't see that. Where is this tumor?"

Now... not to be prejudicial about people in the Bible Belt... I'm actually trying to be sensitive and courteous to people of different upbringings here... but this woman has a big cross, giant beehive hair, and looks like she stepped out of the fifties. She appears to be a conservative member of the Ladies Church Muffin Club. So, I ask, "It's in a sensitive area. Are you okay with me telling you, or would you prefer I speak to a male attendant?" She snaps her gum and says "Don't be silly, this is a doctor's office, and I've seen and heard it all. You got no business being in this business if you can't handle this sort of thing!"

So, I explain that the growth is on my scrotum. She goes "I'm sorry? Could you speak up?" So, louder, I say, "It's on my scrotum." Again, she says, "I'm sorry, hon, I'm a little deaf... could you say again? It's where?" So finally, I say loudly, "IT'S ON MY SCROTUM!"

A lady standing next to me moved away, giving me a dirty look, and the receptionist looks shocked and says "Well, I didn't need to know that!" and leaves in a huff. G, bless her heart, growled "Grow the hell up, lady, what are, you, ninety?" at the patient who backed away.

So... We wait for like two hours past the time of my appointment.

Finally, a nice, polite, genial doctor comes out to get me, and ushers me into a waiting room. He asks, "So... what seems to be the trouble?"

This is not a good sign. I'm thinking that he should already know what seems to be the trouble. I made the appointment for a procedure, not a checkup, and I've also explained it to Miss "I didn't need to know that," in the reception area.

So, I explain the situation, and ask, "So, can we remove this, then?"

And the doctor says, "Well, let's have a look at it, and see if it really needs to come off."

No. It doesn't need to come off. I've really been hoping I can keep it. I'll be so relieved if I discover that it's benign! I already know the damn thing is 99.999% likely to be harmless.

I explain patiently and politely that I don't want it removed because I am afraid it is dangerous. I explain that I want it removed because it is unsightly, and in case my simple wish to have it removed isn't enough, here is my lady friend who will attest that she thinks it is unsightly as well. We do not want to know, to paraphrase Paula Poundstone, if it is the sort of tumor that has rights. I just want it removed. I tell him, "Since a biopsy will involve removing it anyway, this should be a no-brainer, and that's what I made the appointment for."

So... the doctor says, "I'll really need to see it first, before we can make a determination."

Now, before allowing myself to get annoyed, I remind myself that he is a doctor, and part of the ethical dictates of his profession is that he, not the patient, needs to determine whether a medical procedure is necessary. For all he knows, I've got a malignant carcinoma with an eyeball growing out of it, and it's not an outpatient thing. I realize that he is probably doing his job, and I'm just being "Type A."

So, I drop my pants, so he can see the thing. He kind of tries to look at it without really looking at my genitals. Which is hard, because it is on my scrotum. He then attempts to touch it, without touching my genitals, which is also hard. I have never had this problem before... although I did once have a doctor who touched me more than I wanted him to, when I was eight, and I brained him with an instrument tray.

But this guy is acting like he has a cultural taboo against looking at or touching genitalia (he was Muslim, but that's never made a difference with any other Muslim doctor I've ever had). That's fine for him, but I need a doctor who isn't, because I want this thing gone.

So... he tells me "Yes, we should remove that. It's probably harmless, but I can see why you'd want it gone. We'll have to do a biopsy, but the entire growth will be removed when we do. We'll take it off and send it to the laboratory to make sure everything's okay."

Wow. Ya think? It's amazing... I could have sworn I'd heard similar words, a few moments before. From me.

So, I say, "Great! Thanks. So... will we be getting started soon, because I've already been here a couple hours later than planned."

He says, "Oh no... not today. We'll schedule you an appointment. I don't do outpatient surgeries."

Now I'm annoyed, because that's what I came in for. But I figure, "Okay. He wanted to make an observation and diagnosis first."

So... I make an appointment to come back in. The receptionist has clearly not spoken to the doctor I've just seen, so I explain what I need. I ask her to speak to the doctor, to avoid any confusion. We play the "Where is this tumor?" game again. I then drag the doctor over, to make sure that he explains that I need to have an appointment to have it removed, not examined.

I'm then told that the doctor who does these procedures does not come in on Saturdays. So I'll have to take work off. So, I make an appointment for the following week, and arrange with my boss to take a day off. I couldn't just clear this with my supervisor, who was an angel. I had to deal with the manager of the department, who frankly, I thought was rather a rotten creature. I don't like people who have trouble controlling a smile when they make someone unhappy, or see someone in discomfort, and he was exactly this type of person. So, I had to explain that I needed time off for a doctor's appointment, and he gives me a huge hassle, and wants to know why I need to go to the doctor. I tell him I need to have a tumor removed. He wants to know if it is medically necessary. I tell him that yes, I feel it is necessary to remove cancerous growths when I discover that I have them in my body. He wants to know what makes me think I have a tumor, so I acted as if I were going to unzip my pants, and offered to show him where it was. That definitely flustered him, and I got the day off. He said he'd need documentation from the doctor's office to prove I'd had a procedure. I offered to bring him pictures. We did not have a good rapport.

So... the next week, I get to the doctor's office, and I wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, after about three hours, I'm getting annoyed. Three different people at the receptionists desk play the "What are you here for?" game with me, which, of course, includes the "And where is the growth you want removed?" game as well.

So... finally, I'm called in to the examining room, and the nice, professional-looking guy comes in, in a doctor's coat, looking like Doctor Kildare. "So... what seems to be the trouble?" So, I explain for the umpteenth time, including that the reason for the appointment is to have the thing removed. He says, "Well, let's take a look at it first, before we go cutting on anything, and make sure it's something that needs to be removed. I'm now getting pretty annoyed, but I choke it down. I explain that the other doctor already looked at it before, determined that we should remove it, and that I made this appointment and took time off of work.

He tells me, "Well, he may have seen it, but I haven't."

So... I drop trousers and let him see this thing.

Okay... all my gay friends and people out there on the internet. This is not remotely amusing. This may sound like a porn script, but good porns don't have fatty tumors in them.

He looks at it, nods, and says, "Yep. That will have to come off!"

No shit. It's a frigging skin tumor.

So, I say, "Yup. It sure does. That's why I'm here. So, let's get to it."

And he says, "Oh no. I don't perform those procedures. I'm not a doctor. I'm just Doctor So-and-so's Physician's Assistant. He'll have to schedule you to come in when he gets back."

"Oh...when will he be back? I've already been here for hours," I say.

"He won't be back until next Monday. He's on vacation - went to some gold tournament," he tells me.

Yes. A golf tournament. Really. This is, by the way, something that the office knew about before scheduling my appointment.

I explain that I've already taken work off, that I'm very upset, and that I can't afford to miss work. I also can't afford to keep paying for office visits so that they can make appointments for more office visits. I say that I didn't need to pay $110 dollars to have someone tell me that I should have this thing cut off... I wanted it actually cut off. I insist that I need to be given an appointment when the doctor is actually there, when he is not on a golf tournament, and that when I come in, I want this thing to be removed. I can't afford to take any more time off work.

Keep in mind... my choices for where to go for this procedure are limited. I'm about ready to drive to Atlanta, but I figure that will probably mean starting this whole chuckle-fest over again.

So... we make the appointment. They apologize for the inconvenience. They assure me that next time I come it, it will be snicker-snack, and the tumor-wocky will be slain.

Now... by this time, I can't really afford to take more time off work, so I arrange to come in before work in the morning. I have to do this in the morning, because the doctor only does surgeries in the morning. It's supposed to take only fifteen minutes or so, and I work five minutes away. I arrange to come in a little bit late to work, just in case.

So... I get into the office at 8AM. I'm the only patient there. I wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, it's 9AM, when I'm supposed to be at work, but I've already arranged to come in as late as 10AM if necessary. I pester the receptionist, and explain that I can't afford to take time off work, and ask when the doctor will see me. After a few minutes, I'm ushered into an examination room. By this point, patients have begun to trickle in.

The doctor walks in - he's maybe fifty-five or sixty. Perfect silvery-white hair and mustache. Looks like someone out of a Normal Rockwell painting of a doctor. I figure this is good - he's obviously been in practice a while. So... he asks me.

"So... what seems to be the trouble today? Got that cold that's going around?"

I blink twice, and explain, no, that I'm in to have a tumor removed. That I'm here for a biopsy. That this is what I was scheduled to come in for. That I'm already late, have already been in twice, and that I need to get back to work.

And he says, I am shitting you not, "Well, let's take a look at what you've got there, and if it needs to come off, we can schedule you to come in and..."

And that's about as far as he got before I went ballistic. I explained, very loudly, that I'd already had the runaround, that the thing needed to come off. That I couldn't take time off work. That I was in here to have it removed, not examined, not talked about, and not discussed. He spluttered that he really hadn't been planning on doing a biopsy today, and I retorted that he should take it up with his secretaries, and that I'd already been inconvenienced, and that I was not paying for any more office visits, because I could not afford it. I told him that if I got cancer and died, I'd be sure to tell the reporters that I'd tried to have a simple outpatient procedure that I'd come to this office, and that they'd bungled it.

So... there was a big hustle and bustle, and they arranged to do the thing. So... they usher me into their little mini-surgery room, which is right next to the receptionist's desk. Part of the room is actually used for the office's file storage. Another physician's assistant (really nice guy, though he had a deer-in-the-headlights look), comes in and asks me to get undressed and sit on this little bed/operating table thingy.

So... I get undressed, and the receptionist walks in without knocking to get into the file cabinet, while I'm standing there with my pants off, and leaves the door open. There's like twenty people out in the receptionist's area, including a couple of little old ladies... one who looked deeply offended, and another who winked and blew me a kiss.

I'm not body-shy, but this struck me as a discourtesy. So, I said something like "Umm... excuse me?" to the receptionist. And she says, and I am not making this up... "Oh honey, don't worry, I've seen it all before." This is the same stupid bitch who got offended when I said where the tumor was.

So I said, "Maybe that's so, but maybe all the people in the reception area haven't, and you didn't ask if I'd prefer a male attendant. Maybe I dion't want you in here, or maybe you should knock first."

It's the principle of the thing. So... she says "Gee... soooorry," and leaves in a huff.

So, I get on the table, and the PA paints my crotch up with betadine, and leaves. And he leaves the door open. The table is in plain view of all the people standing in the reception area, crotch-forward. So, I get up, hobble over, and shut the door. Two minutes later, the secretary comes in, without knocking, goes "Eeek! Oh, I'm sorry!" and runs out... not shutting the door properly, so it swings open. I get up again, and shut the door. The PA comes back in after about ten minutes, and says the doctor will be down soon. He leaves, and does not shut the door. Now, I'm getting pissed. I shut it again. A woman standing in the reception area looks at me as I do, and says "Boy! You shoudl shut that damn door, I don't wanna see that!"

That really helped my mood.

So... I wait, and wait, and wait. It's freezing cold and I'm sitting naked in an empty room. The clock is ticking. I'm late for work. I finally get pissed off and put my clothes back on. I go out to call my boss and say I'll need a half day off work after all. The manager is thankfully out of the office that day.... doctor's appointment (ironically, the thing he was going to the doctor for apparently killed him later). My supervisor says not to worry.

So... I get back into the little operating room, and the PA is in there. He wants to know why I've gotten dressed. I bitched him out, and told him I was missing work, that I'd been left naked in a cold room for long enough, that I wanted the goddamn thing off of me, that I'd get undressed when the goddamn doctor was ready to goddamn operate, and to SHUT THE GODDAMN DOOR!

Honestly, sometimes, it pays to stop being reasonable.

So, the doctor comes in, finally, and wants to know why I'm not ready, because he doesn't have all day.

Needless to say, I took a deep breath, counted to ten, and "explained" things to him. When I was done with my, his silvery white hair had whiter streaks in it. I hate to say it... but sometimes, when I want to be scary, I can be. Perhaps it is best not to invoke sensations of primal terror in a man that you are asking to cut on your nuts with a scalpel, but on the other hand, trust me... when someone is in primal fear of you, and they are holding a scalpel to your junk, they are rather afraid to make a mistake.

So... I get prepped, and he brings over some Novocaine. I explain that I'm impervious to Novocaine, and does he have anything stronger. So he brings out some Lidocaine, and uses a lot of it. I'm pretty resistant to all of those things, so I insisted that he be sure to use plenty.

He injects me with the needle, and immediately begins cutting. Now... keep in mind. That shit takes like fifteen minutes to start working. But at this point, I no longer give a crap. I just want this over with, and besides, I've already terrorized this guy and his staff, and told them I want out of here as quickly as possible.

The very first thing he does is cut that little artery I was worried about at the beginning of this article. Blood spurts out of it in a little spray, before coursing down and pooling under my ass-crack. Yes. Pooling. As in... lots of blood. I remarked on this, but didn't really want to interrupt. he cuts out the little tumor that is the cause of this whole mess, and carefully scrapes away some surrounding tissue. The whole incision is maybe a centimeter long. But there's blood everywhere.

So.. he and the assistant are trying to figure out how to stop the bleeding. Or rather, the doctor is. The PA has turned chalk-white, and is looking at the ceiling and swallowing a lot, and has been since the first stroke of the knife. Big help. Now... the doctor keeps calling for more stitches, more stitches. He's sewing and sewing, and sewing, and finally, after a while, I'm like "What the hell are you doing down there?"

He looks up, ashen, with sweat running down his face into his little surgical mask and say, in a desperate, ER drama voice "I'm trying to stop this bleeding, but I can't seem to get it under control."

Okay... now I'm really mad. I'm looking at like a zillion stitches down there, already, and there's blood everywhere. So I ask, "It's not that big an incision. Just get a styptic pencil or some styptic powder, if pressure won't work."

I'm telling him this. He's a doctor.

He looks up at me and asks, "What's a styptic pencil?"

I am now furious. I can forgive some of my gentle readers if they don't know what this is. It's a little pencil-shaped thing with chemicals on it that you use to stop bleeding from small injuries. There's also styptic powder, which is used for the same thing. It's something your doctor should know what it is, and certainly a guy who got his degree in the fifties should have heard of it.

He has no clue. In fact, he has no idea of any substance or practice that can be used to stop bleeding. I am now wondering if they got the garbageman to play doctor for the day, while the real doctor plays golf.

So... I ask him, "What exactly were you planning to do then?"

His plan? Lots of stitches. He put like fifteen or twenty stitches into a spot less than a centimeter long. This did sort of stop the bleeding, in that the blood could not ooze out any more.

So... after this, he looks up at me, smiling and says, "There! Now that wasn't so bad, was it? How do you feel?"

So... I responded "Much better, now that the anesthetic is beginning to take effect."

I did not pay for this visit, at least not in money. I paid in experience. I also paid them in the form of some character building. I think by the time I was done ranting at them, they'd have called the police, except that they were afraid I might bite off some fingers if they went for the phone.

I actually lost enough blood that I felt sick. It hurt a lot too. I ended up missing the whole day of work. The frankenstein stitches kept the wound from oozing, but I had a giant blood-bubble from where it filled up the cavity. It took weeks to heal, and I assure you, I did not go back to the office to have the stitches removed. I just did it at home. I figured with my luck, that they'd schedule me for an appointment, on a workday, to have the janitor look at the stitches and see if they needed to be removed.