Did you know that, in my fifty-six years of life, I’ve never been cut open?

Never.

Not once.

Not intentionally, anyhow.

I’ve had a few klutzy moments with scissors, knives and razors, but, I mean, I’ve never had to go under the scalpel.

Never.

I still have my adenoids, my tonsils, my appendix and my wisdom teeth.

The only times I’ve ever been “knocked out” were when I had my two colonoscopies done.

I hated it.

I don’t like giving up control.

As I was being “prepped” for the “procedures”, (Procedure! Don’t you just love it? “You’re going to take that tube and shove it where???!!!”), I remember being wheeled into “the poop deck”, having some nurse shove a needle in my arm and say “Count backwards from one hundred.”

“One hundred…nine….” GONE!

The next thing I knew, I was in recovery, covered with cranberry juice and muffin crumbs, surrounded by a bunch of giggling nurses and one embarrassed wife.

Don’t ask.

Even in the sixth grade when Anthony Fama got pissed and smashed me in the head with a rock, I didn’t get knocked out. I just got mad as hell, ran up to the top of the hill where he was standing, and proceeded to beat the living shit out of him. (My head was throbbing. It hurt like crazy! And, believe it or not, that I was the one and only fight I ever had in my whole life.)

***



Well, the other day, I went to the doctor. She put that lighted scope up my nose, and said, “Oh my! You’ve got a polyp!”

“A what?”

“A polyp!”

“Really!” I was amazed. I thought polyps only took up lodging on the opposite end of the human body, in a completely different orifice!

I asked her if it was malignant, and she informed me that nasal polyps were not the same as colon polyps. They were generally non-cancerous, and they were basically inflamed mucous portals.

Oh.

Gross!

She said that, if left unattended, it would probably continue to grow and eventually completely block my nasal passage. She also said that bacteria have a tendency to congregate around inflamed polyps and have parties, which causes frequent and severe sinus infections.

She recommended that I have thing removed.

“How?”

“Snip, snip.”

“Ain’t gonna happen!”

Well, after a lot of coaxing, she convinced me to have it done. So I’ve made an appointment with an ear, nose and throat doctor that she recommended, and, to be honest with you,…I’m scared to death.

Not only am I going to have to be knocked out, but I know it’s going to hurt like all hell.

My friends tell me that it won’t be that bad. They tell me to stop being a baby about it.

“Oh yeah? Well, did you ever yank out a nose hair? Christ! My eyes get teared up, and I get headaches just thinking about it! And this guy isn’t going to be using tweezers up there! He’s going to be spelunking in my nasal passages using A VERY FUCKING SHARP knife and hacking off a piece of my FLESH!”

I don’t do well with pain.

I really don’t.

I’ve spent the better part of my life trying hard to avoid it. And now, I am making an appointment with somebody for the express purpose of CAUSING pain!

It’s not right.

I don’t like it one damned bit.

This growing older crap is for the birds!