I went to the doctor today, and the good news is the pain in my back and side may be a pinched nerve.  I know that isn’t exactly news over which most people wouldn’t jump for joy, but to me it was a HUGE relief.

Why? Because I was positive that I had pancreatic cancer…or chronic kidney disease.

You see, I’ve had this nagging pain in my back near my left hip for over a month now.  Sometimes, it radiates around to my front, and sometimes it radiates straight down to my testicles.  If I stand for a long period of time, it really starts to bother me. However, if I sit down, it subsides.  At first, I thought the pain in my side was diverticulitis, because after my last colonoscopy, the butt doctor told me that I had a rough spot in my colon that could lead to diverticulitis. So, I gave up eating jalopenos, which I LOVE, and nuts and things with seeds in them.

The pain didn’t go away.

So, I looked up the human anatomy on the internet, and determined that the center of the pain was located in the pancreas.  Therefore, I concluded that I had pancreatic cancer, which is almost always fatal.  One of the signs of this disease is stool that floats.  SOOOooooOOOO, I began checking, and sure enough, at least half of my deposits in the bowl bobbed to the surface of the water.

Another sign of pancreatic cancer is pain in the upper abdomen that could radiate to the lower back.  Well, I had pain in my lower back that radiated around to my lower abdomen.

Other symptoms are unexplained weight loss, jaundice, depression, nausea and loss of appetite – none of which was I ever plagued with. 

But I had two out of 2 out of 7, so I was convinced that I was a dead man.

Next, I thought that perhaps I had chronic kidney disease, because kidneys are located somewhere  in the back, and I was experiencing back pain. Just because I didn’t have any of the symptoms listed on the internet page didn’t mean a thing.  Kidneys are located in the lower back. My lower back was hurting me.  What the hell else could it be but complete renal  failure! For God’s  sake, man! You must own up to it when the facts are staring you right in the face!

Well, after six weeks of suffering , worrying and driving poor Mary Ellen crazy, the pain got almost unbearable two days ago.  I was picking up a fifty-pound  bag of feed, and suddenly, my back screamed at me at the top of its lungs.  I fell to my knees, paralyzed for a few seconds.  Then, when the hot, white agony subsided a little, I made it back to my feet and swore to myself that I would see the doctor the next day.

There’s not much she could do for renal failure, according to the internet, but I figured that she could give me some morphine and maybe suggest a good hospice center to me.

Now, my doctor is the type who will spend as much time with as you want.  I always ask her a ton of questions, and she always patiently answers them all and manages a sense f humor at the same time.

I walked into her office this time with a hand-written list comprised of four items that I wanted to discuss with her.

Item #1 – “back, front, butt and balls” The epicenter of the pain was in my back, situated directly on my left hip.  It radiates to the other areas mentioned.

After  a careful examination, my doctor concluded that it was most assuredly back pain caused  by a pinched nerve.  She explained that such pain frequently radiates to the front of the body and down the buttocks to the legs.

Even though I was fully dressed, she had me slip on one of those goddamned hospital johnnies “for privacy.” She then had me drop my drawers, pushed the johnnie to one side, and she began prodding and probing around my genitals.

As she fooled around down there, I thought to myself, A hell of a lot of good this johnnie is doing! I then smiled at her and said, “I feel so dirty and abused!” To that she burst out laughing. Then  I had to do the old “turn your head and cough” routine.

When she was finished, she concluded that there were no masses or lumps in the area in question, ruling out cancer and hernias.

When I asked her about pancreatic cancer, she gave me a bemused look and said, “Jim. You’ve been spending too much time on Google again!

I asked her about diverticulitis, because when I had my last colonoscopy, the butt doctor said that I had a roughening the colon that could lead to that disease.

 Doctor Jennifer responded to that query by pressing hard on my lower left abdominal region.  “Did that hurt?” she asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Well, if you had diverticulitis, and I did that to you, I’d be prying you off the roof right now.

I then asked her if the pain in my back could be due to kidney disease because I was sure that I was experiencing renal failure.

She spun me around and pushed on the middle of my back.  “Did that hurt?” she asked.

“Nope,” I replied, “Is THAT where my kidneys are? I thought they were lower.”

She assured me that THAT was where my kidneys were, and then she said with a chuckle, “Jim. Do yourself a favor and burn your computer.”

She then asked me if I would submit to MRI on the lumbar region to look for a pinched nerve. I gave her my permission to make an appointment for such a test at the hospital.

Then, I asked her the remaining three questions on my check list.

“How much fish oil should I be taking daily?”

She asked me why I was taking fish oil. I told her it was my wife’s idea.

She looked at my chart and said, “Jim, your HDL is wonderful, and triglycerides are really low.  You don’t need to take fish oil.”

Number three on the list was, “How much bee pollen should I take a day?”

She looked at me like I had two heads. Then she said, “Do you have horrendous allergies?” I shook my head no. She said, “Tell your wife that you don’t need to take bee pollen either.”

Number four dealt with me being pre-diabetic. I asked, “As a pre-diabetic, is it okay if I have fruit?”

She said that one or two pieces of fruit a day was fine.  Fruit has natural sugars, but it also has a boatload of fiber, which counteracts the sugar. 

Fruit juice, however, is a no-no. It has no fiber whatever, and it is loaded with sugar.

I walked out of that office with a lot of back pain, and I was on cloud nine. No cancer! No diverticulitis. No renal failure. No more 3600 milligrams of fish GNC fish oil every morning. No more daily teaspoonful of bee pollen either! Just a pinched nerve in the back!!! Life, at 57, doesn’t get much better than that!

When I got out of the car at home, Fritz, my two year old German shepherd came bounding up to happily greet me, as usual.  I squatted down to pet him, and, for the first time in weeks, I thought, Fritzy, my boy, I really think that I’m going to outlive you!

The first thing I did when I got into the house open the refrigerator and throw out those damned bottles of bee pollen and fish oil.