Part Three: The Biopsy

Another week later and I'm back in Dr. Mason's office for the biopsy. I'm a bit nervous because I know what he's gonna do. Once I arrive in the room, I'm instructed by the nurse to strip waist down, lay on the table in a somewhat fetal position and cover myself with the sheet provided. Oh boy! I'm thinking, "I wonder if this will hurt - and how much?"

So, I lay there counting the seconds, or minutes, wondering when the doctor will come barging through the door, ready to inflict pain on me! He knocks and comes in and asks, "How ya doin'?" "I'm doing ok," I responded, with a lie. His nurse stands on the front side of me over a tray containing a few gadgets, 6 small glass containers and a long, long, long syringe! My eyes get pretty huge now! I ask the nurse about the 6 small containers. She told me that they are for the samples that the doctor will extract from my prostate. I pointed my finger at them and started counting. I said, "Six samples!?" She responded, "You should be glad - it's usually 12."

Ok, now the fun part. I'll try not to be too vivid here, but I want to describe the experience so brothers can know. If you don't want to know THEN STOP READING NOW!!! For the rest of you, take a deep breath and let's proceed.

The doctor sits in his chair and pulls over a small monitor which is used to view ultrasound images. He then sticks the camera (a long tubular device!) up you-know-where and stops right at the base of my lower intestine - right where my prostate is. This doesn't hurt - just uncomfortable! But, there's a slender, hollow tube connected to the ultrasound device. This is for the syringe (which is about a foot long - the needle part alone)!!! He gives me a local anesthetic shot right in the prostate!!! My eyes nearly popped out of my head. Mainly out of the shock because it wasn't excruciating, but it did sting. After the shot they asked me how I felt. I was fine, but then seconds later I felt a little light-headed. It didn't last long, though. Then comes the real fun part!!! Dr. Mason has a syringe/gun-like device that he inserts through the tube which extracts the sample. Now, I have to admit: Dr. Mason is a really nice guy through all of this. He describes to me every movement he has to make so that I'm not caught off guard. In his words, "Ok, you're going to feel a sting - then a pinch." He says this each time which is most helpful. My eyes squint with each sting, but the pinch is not too bad. By the way, I'm counting with each sting and pinch. When he finishes number 6, I'm about to sigh when he inserts the thing again!!! I tell him, "I thought you only needed 6!" He replied, "Nah, I need more than that. I just need 8 and I'm done." Well, that's not too bad. It's just 2 more.

Once he's finished, he and the nurse put everything away. The nurse has me sit up slowly and stands directly in front of me. She looks right in my eyes and asks, "How are you feeling?" Since I'm kind of crazy, I respond by saying, "I'm fine" and pretend to be passing out and then jerk my head back and say with a smile, "Just kidding!" She then looks at me and says, "No, I'm serious. We had a patient before who had the same thing done and as we were walking out to let him get dressed, he was laying flat on the floor. Are you sure you're ok?" Then I got serious and begin to analyze myself. "Yeah, I...I'm ok," I responded with concern. She walked out and I carefully got up and "cleaned myself" a bit and then got dressed. I was a little lightheaded as I was walking out with my wife, but I was fine. Dr. Mason told me to return for the next week to get the results.

It was a little uncomfortable riding home. I was obviously sore from the biopsy that lasted a few days. I was also alerted that any blood in the urine or semen was normal and would last a while. Now all I had to do was wait until next week for the verdict...

Part Two: The Phone Call

Less than one week later from the free men's prostate screening at my church, I'm at work getting ready to go on to the State Fair with my fellow employees. It's one of those cool perks that we have that keeps us wanting to come to work! It's the best job that I've ever had (more about that later)!!!

As I'm walking to check on something before heading to one of the buses, my cell phone rings. It's the Methodist Hospital's healthfair coordinator, Tim Upshaw. He coordinates the screenings with churches and other organizations. He also makes the phone calls to the men regarding their screening results. Well, I was one of those who got the call from him this time. At this time, I'm really ignorant to a lot of the things that pertain to prostate cancer. But he proceeded to explain to me what I needed to know so that I wasn't in the dark about any of it and was trying to comfort me at the same time. Tim told me that my PSA numbers were higher than they should be. The normal PSA range is from 0 - 4 for men in general. It's 0 - 2 for African American men! My PSA was 7 (7.47 to be exact). A big chill went through me. Tim went on to say that it doesn't always mean cancer - and that it could just be an infection, or prostatitis, which is specifically inflammation of the prostate gland. This is treated with the right kind of antibiotics. Now my mind is thinking, "That's what I hope it is." Tim proceeded to inform me that I need to get to a urologist as soon as possible to find out for sure. He also suggested a real good urologist at the same hospital and gave me the name of one who is, in his opinion, the best.

Just as I'm about to call my "worrying" wife, she calls me. Tim called the house first so that explains that. She told me that I need to go see the doctor today!!! So, I went to the fair with my job and my wife told me that she would be picking me up at the front gate at a certain time. She was able to get an appointment for me later that afternoon. As she arrived at about 2pm and I walked to the front and hopped in the van. My wife asked me how I was feeling. I told her I was fine, but I was a bit nervous.

Well, we met with the urologist, Dr. R. Carrington Mason. After asking some important and routine questions, he told me that he wanted to check me for himself (the dreaded index finger!!!). Man, that was the most uncomfortable finger check that I ever had! I almost peed on the floor!!! Actually I did a little bit as I frowned in discomfort. He was a little rough, but his purpose was to be thorough. Like the doctor at the church screening, even he said that he didn't feel anything, although he mentioned that my prostate felt a bit spongy to him. Don't know what that means, but it was enough for him to say something about it. Dr. Mason then said, "We need to do a biopsy." Say what??? In other words, he needed to get some samples of my prostate so that they can be sent to a lab to run tests to see what's really going on. How was he going to do that? I found out one week later...