“Well, Teddy,” the doctor says, taking a seat on a stool and opening my chart on the laptop, “you have quite the health advocate.”
“I’m so lucky.”
“Is there someone more age-appropriate, perhaps, though?” the doctor asks. “I’m not sure we can list her as your emergency contact. How old are you, Ava?”
“Seventeen,” she says.
The doctor gives me a concerned look.
“Dude,” Ava continues. “He, like, trusts me for some reason. And I trust him for some reason. I got him here, okay? And sober for once! I promise once we get the ball rolling...” Ava looks at me. “Sorry for the awful pun.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
“Anyway,” she continues, “once we get the ball rolling, I promise his friends will step up. I think he just needs a bit more time to process how he’s going to handle telling them, but he needs to get the surgery scheduled ASAP.”
The doctor nods and makes a note in his chart.
“You are now his backup emergency contact, behind Ron,” Dr. Ferguson says. “Give me your contact information.”
Ava does.
She waits until the doctor finishes typing and says, “Thank you. Oh, Teddy told me you went to see his show.”
“I did,” he says. “As I told him, I was quite moved by it. Have you?”
“Not yet,” Ava says. “This weekend. So then you know he has a great set of friends who will do anything and everything to ensure he has the best postoperative care.”
“I do.”
“My great-uncle is too demure to say this out loud, but he’s very concerned about the future state of his penis. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able use it again, if you know what I mean, but he’d like to know it’s on standby and ready to go if he needs it, sort of like a backup generator. Can you assure us that it will work after surgery? Oh, and he is not super excited about smelling like a porta-potty either. What are the options?”
The doctor shakes his head in amazement. “Are you sure you don’t want to be a doctor?”
“Thanks,” she says. “But I already got my degree from WebMD.”
“Great school,” the doctor deadpans. “And great questions.”
He swivels his stool toward me. “Let me be completely honest about the side effects, Teddy. Urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction are common after surgery. Roughly eight in ten men experience these symptoms.”
“Great odds,” I say. “They should have this game at the casino. Call itWinkle or Tinkle. You win, and you still lose!”
“Teddy,” Dr. Ferguson says, his voice low and serious, “I am a great surgeon. I perform many prostatectomies, and my patients report lower rates of erection problems than the average. Moreover, bladder control usually improves slowly after a few weeks or months. Older men do have more issues, but again, my patients report lower rates of occurrence. Does that mean I can guarantee there won’t be any? No. Erections are controlled by two tiny bundles of nerves that run either side of the prostate. You’ve told me you were able to have erections before surgery,so—as Ava mentioned—I will try a nerve-sparing approach, but if the cancer is growing close to the nerves, I will need to remove them.”
I feel as if I’ve already emerged from surgery: I’m numb. I can’t feel anything.
“If this happens,” Dr. Ferguson continues, “you won’t be able to have spontaneous erections, but you might be able to with medications, aids or pumps.”
“Lions and tigers and bears, oh, my!” I sing in my best Judy Garland imitation.
“Again, my hope is we can preserve the nerves.”
“When would I know for sure?” I ask.
“Erectile function often returns slowly, from a few months to two years or more.”
“Twoyears?” I ask. “So I won’t get a boner until I’m in my coffin?”
“Language!” Ava says, wagging a finger at me, mimicking her grandmother.
