Getting older, one awkward gland at a time
It’s been getting harder to pee.
It’s not that I can’t pee. That would be time to rush for the emergency room and get catheterized, something that (so far) I have not had to do. But for several years the stream has been getting thinner. There is also turbulence in what should be—forgive me for this—a smooth, laminar flow.
I’m told that this is a normal part of male aging. The prostate enlarges. The urethra is compressed. Take it in stride, like hair growing from your ears or junk mail from the AARP. Fair. I’m pushing 60 and I count myself lucky that, other than back pain, I haven’t had to manage chronic health issues. It couldn’t last forever.
Reduced flow has led to some embarrassing moments. Once this happened at Changi Airport in Singapore as I was waiting with my family to board a 15 hour flight back to the U.S., an awkward moment to low-key wet yourself. I’ll often sit to pee if that is option. Most men’s bathrooms at public venues have a high urinal-to-stall ratio, so this can be a pain. I know that women have lived with this inconvenience since the Greeks invented theater 2500 years ago. But also, as you’ve suspected, men are filthy.
I like to think that I am an intellectual, above comparing myself to other men in superficial ways. But when I’m squeezing out a thin stream and the guy one stall over sounds like he’s emptying a margarita pitcher into the bowl, I can’t help but think, fucking large-bore show-off, I hope you get hit by a Cybertruck and dragged three blocks before the driver notices. Uncharitable, I know.
In one of the most traumatizing rituals of American life, I recently had to switch health insurers. For thirteen years I’d been with an HMO, where the insurer is also the provider and all the costs are internalized, so you are made to go through elaborate rituals and attestations before you can see a specialist. This saves money for the HMO and you’re never going to get a surprise bill, but the failure mode is death because they missed a problem.
I had raised the slow cinching of my prostate with two doctors at the HMO a few years ago. Neither felt it was worth escalation, which was probably correct at the time, though I did get my inaugural digital rectal exam. It was quicker and less mortifying than I had feared. Societies have all sorts of rituals for welcoming young men into adulthood, from the bar-mitzvahs of Brooklyn to the bullet ants of the Satere-Mawé. But we all get ushered into old age with a finger up the ass.
My wife thinks this is hilarious. When I sulked about it, she reminded me that I haven’t had a lifetime of pelvic exams and mammograms. “At least you don’t get the speculum,” she said. Implied: you wuss.
