As you probably can guess by now I work in the medical field, specifically I’m a medical assistant in orthopedics. Of all the fields of medicine I had to choose from, this one suits me the best. You see, orthopedics is a relatively clean job for an medical assistant. Our patient’s are hurt not sick, so there is no vomiting, diarrhea, spitting, coughing, etc; and the closest we come to an intimate knowledge of them is when we have to put on an ankle cast and we are eye to eye with their lap.
Several years ago I was asked to sub-in for a six-week stint in the urology department. They do a lot of in-house procedures and have a myriad of gadgets. I was getting a bit bored with ortho so decided this sounded like a good idea. Oh, how foolish I was.
I had no idea I would be faced with ten to fifteen penises a day with several vaginas thrown in for good measure. There would cystoscopies, vasectomies, prostate probes, checking surgical sites from the vasectomies, on and on, day in and day out. Oh my, so many penises. I wasn’t aware there were that many men out there with their manly parts in peril.
Day after day I held strange men’s dangly bits in my hand; cleansing them, placing them on a surgical drape, and then assisting the physician in placing the long, thin camera all the way up into the bladder area. Or, conversely, assisting the doctor in the snipping of the vas deferens. (Side note – it did amuse me when I placed the patient’s twig and berries on the sheet, it appeared I was displaying them for viewing; like laying out silverware on a nicely starched linen tablecloth.)
I learned a lot about myself during that ill-advised adventure; I have no desire to view that many penises a day, let alone handle them; explaining to friends and family what I did all day was awkward at best. And, most importantly, contrary to men’s opinions of themselves, none of you are that much different from the rest.
Which brings me to my next tale. I had the patient on the table, I acquired all my cleaning equipment, had exposed and laid out his appendage and was now grasping it firmly in my hand ready to clean. This process involved a basin of cleanser, three towelettes and a large towel. You see, in order to thoroughly clean and prep the patient, one has to sponge off the area three different times.
I completed the first stage but felt confused and wasn’t able to figure out why. Something wasn’t right. But, I had to finish this task, so again I grasped him firmly in my hand and was reaching for another towelette when a light dawned. Silently I cried, “OH”. This man had a turtle neck instead of a crew neck. My first uncircumcised patient; in fact, my first uncircumcised man, ever. I knew the whole concept of this: the history, the religion, the ritual, the non-religious reasoning, the actual surgical procedure. What I had never experienced was the viewing of the extra, original appendage.
I pulled back on the aforementioned site and continued cleaning, secure in the fact that I was now back in control of the situation. It appeared he never realized I had a moment of befuddlement than clarification.
In the ensuing weeks I found that men have different ways of coping with having their penises handled by a strange woman. Some don’t speak a word and avoid eye contact; some try to start a conversation of something completely unrelated to what is going on at the time. And then there were the select few who insisted on commenting and inviting comments on their willies. One invited me to gaze upon what he considered to be a prime example of the penis. (Yes, he actually said that.) He felt his was perfect in every way and out performed every other man. (Again, he actually said that.) As I weighed the consequences of being fired for telling him that he was not any different from previous patients, and actually was lacking in length compared to some, I gravitated to keeping my mouth shut and keeping my job. But, how I regret not knocking this person off his self aggrandized penis pedestal.
The end of those six weeks couldn’t come soon enough. I finally was able to go “home” to ortho and regale my co-workers with stories of urology. It was when I was telling the tale of the turtle neck versus crew neck, that one of my peeps said she had never seen a man with a crew neck. I then shared I had never seen a man with a turtle neck until now. It was at this point we realized we knew way too much about each other’s husbands.
magicalmess 