Bilateral Orchiectomy by Ric Masten February 26, 2000 [previous: The Digital Exam]

never could
look up words in the dictionary

in a high school assignment
writing an autobiography
I described my self as a unique person
scribbled in the margin
the teachers correction fairly chortled
there had to be more to it than the sex act
"unique" not "eunuch"
how could he have known
that one day I would actually become
a misspelling

backed against the wall
by advanced prostate cancer
I chose the operation
over the enormous ongoing
expense of chemical castration
"No big deal." I thought at the time
what’s the difference
they both add up to the same thing

but in the movies these days
during the hot gratuitous sex scene
I yawn…bored...
wishing they’d quit dicking around
and get on with the plot
and on TV the buxom cuties
that titillate around the products
certainly aren't selling me anything

I realize now that
although it would probably kill them
the guys who went chemical
still have an option
I don’t

philosophically I’m the same person
but biologically
I ‘m like the picture puzzle
our family traditionally puts together
over the Christmas holidays
the French impressionist rendition
of a flower shop interior
in all its bright colorful confusion

this season I didn’t work the puzzle
quite as enthusiastically...
and for good reason
this year I know pieces are missing...
where the orchids used to be

"So?" says I to myself
"You’re still here to smell the roses."

[previous: The Digital Exam]

February 26, 2000 "It’s all in the timing!" they say, and boy are they right! Last April I was rushed into having a bilaterial orchectomy and put on Casodex. Scared - no info - didn’t know if it was the right thing to do or not. In other words I wasn’t the captain of my ship then. I am now, thanks in part to you all! Hell, looking back I wasn’t even a first mate - just a lowly swabbie doing what I was ordered to do. Where were you PC SPES folks when I needed you? Well, at least I have found you now! Live and learn!

Working things out the way I do - by writing about them - I have just finished a new piece called BILATERAL ORCHIECTOMY. As I have never talked to anyone else who has had one I would be most interested in hearing from any of you who have. I’d like to learn if what I describe in this poem is only unique to me or is it something we all have in common.

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Visit Ric Masten's site at http://www.sun-ink.com E-mail him at [email protected].

Ric was a member of the PC-SPES Online Support Group. For his thoughts on the patient investigation of PC SPES that led to an FDA ban and Botaniclab's voluntary shutdown, see his Odyssey entry for 2002, "EVERY SILVER LINING HAS ITS DARK CLOUD!".