“I’ll get you an erection” was said at our board meeting this week. I work for a hospital foundation and a urologist was telling the mostly older males around the table about the possibility of impotence as a result of prostatectomies. His point was, if you suffer nerve damage as a result of surgery, he can offer medical solutions.
The fact that he said the word “erection” was still stunning, yet there was no adolescent giggling in the group. This was serious business. These guys talk about prostates like you and I talk about the weather.
I get where they’re coming from. I get up to pee twice a night on average. Twice a night and I’m 38. I peed once a night when I was 24. At this rate I’ll pee three times a night when I’m 52 and seven times a night when I’m 108. Of course, by then I’ll be too old and slow to make it to the bathroom in time, so I’ll wear a diaper. The grandkids of my nieces and nephews will take care of me. They won’t know who I am, really, but they’ll think that if they treat me well they might get an inheritance.
Except they won’t; I will have spent my retirement long ago. Joke’s on them. It would make Old Me laugh except I won’t be able to; my jaw muscles will be withered and my mouth stuck in a permanent frown. And the former mischievous twinkle in my eye will be a dead star circling my cold inner cosmos. Whatever life is left will be buried beneath the thick husk of age.
And erections will be a distant memory, like watching the flag raised at Iwo Jima. “I once did what with women? Now why in Sam Hill would I do that?!”
I know Old Me is coming. He’s shuffling down the sidewalk as we speak, cursing the weather, flowers and little children. I just don’t want to think about him or prostates or erections. So please, doc, just give us the bill and be on your way.
