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An admitted shoe geek waxes philosophical about running, triathlon, and life in general.
Comments welcome!


Thursday, January 16, 2014

TMI? Or just cringe-worthy?

* Warning -- the truly squeamish may squeam a bit when reading this post.

I've been off the bike since Sunday. The weather is toying with my sanity, surely.

You see, my elder daughter turned 13, and my younger hit 5 months. Two days later I was saying auf wiedersehn to any future possible progeny.

Yep, Monday was V-day.

Wait! you say. You're a month-and-a-day early for Valentine's Day!

I wish.

Not Valentine's, or even victory. The snip-snip. Shooting blanks.


Vasectomy.

Just the word, or even the implication, will send most men cringing while cupping their manhood protectively. Or at least that's what's going through their heads.

As avid cyclists, the first thought is somewhat different.

When searching for some anecdotes a couple days before about how much time I'd be off the bike, I ran across a funny story posted by pdxharth on the Velocipede Salon forum:

So yesterday I got snipped. But - and this is the unfortunate part - I also had to have some other work done with the plumbing, so I had to go under general anesthesia. When I woke up, I asked the doc how it went and about recovery. He responded bluntly, "No sex for a month and no riding for at least three weeks." 

"THREE WEEKS?!" I yelped. But as I looked at him, I could tell he was looking at Kate, who was sitting on the other side of me. So I looked over and there she sat, shaking her head, which was bowed down with her hand on her face, her eyes rolling.

It took me less than a second to get it, but that one response is going to haunt me for the rest of my days.

But it's time. I'm not getting any younger, and really don't need to have any surprises down the road. Don't get me wrong at all -- my young daughter was planned and wanted. We're just done. My wife and I both agree -- neither one of us wants her pregnant again.

So I worked a half day on Monday, then came home and we all took the trip to the doctor's office for "the procedure". 

The humorous moment of the day was when the nurse took me into the "procedure room", and pointed to a small brown paper bag sitting on the table. "Is that what I get to carry my balls home in?" I asked.

She then pointed to two small specimen jars sitting next to the bag. "Nope, that's what those are for."

Outpatient surgery with a local anesthetic.

I'm a fan of general anesthetic. I think at least something a little more would have been good. Maybe not totally knock me out, but something to take the edge off, maybe give me a little bit of "don't give a crap". As it was, by far the worst part of the whole thing was the injection of the lidocaine. Well, that and being able to feel the vibrations of the scalpel cutting the vas deferens on the left side (the first side). That wasn't painful, but it was a little freaky.

Anyway, things went smoothly, I did a lot of sweating and yoga breathing, and then we went home.

Tylenol PM has been my friend. That and my Speedo (much to my wife's chagrin).

I'm almost feeling normal today. Not riding-normal yet. But walking around is mostly a non-event. I may try the trainer on Sunday, just to test things out.

Was it a big deal? The whole surgery was over in less than an hour. The recovery to at least "normal" functional levels has been pretty fast, and within a couple weeks it'll be like it had never happened. As least that's what I'm hoping.

And no, there are NO pictures.

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