The Cancer Diaries...pt 2
All about my ass, Foucault and how homophobia is killing Black people
So the first thing that I did when I got home was cancel the appointment with Dr Joel. It wasn’t like I didn’t need to know, but I’ve always avoided the hell out of any kind of medical procedure. Got my teeth busted out in ice hockey when I was a kid…and to this day am paying the price of putting off the dentist for years at a stretch. Perhaps it goes back to the advice Foucault himself gave me about the power dynamics. Same as schoolteacher/student, guard/guarded, parent/child, law enforcement/citizen. The contemporary medical system is fundamentally authoritarian.
But of course I had to call Dr Joel back and thankfully he was cool about getting me right in. I was lucky.
His well meaning desk assistant suggested I try a very high fiber diet for the days leading up to my appointment. Broccoli, bananas, blackberries, almonds, avos, cereal. By the time I pulled into the small office complex (coincidentally also the headquarters of our security company), I was staggering into the office. I hadn’t shit since the Omni Royal Hotel back in the French Quarter. Those slave trading headquarters hit different when the pipes ain’t flowing [wink emoji]…
I had always had a very satisfying history with my shit. Unless I was on a bender or something like the 2 weeks with attorney Ben through southern Spain it was onto the toilet, plop, keep it moving…so quick I got away with dropping sneak bombs because everyone assumed I just took a piss.
Dr Joel’s was very antique 70’s. Old carpet, crossword puzzles. Analogue. Accordingly the good doctor was right out of sitcom central casting - disheveled, comb over, carrying way too much weight, grumpy.
We spent a good twenty minutes in his office. It was frustrating as hell. Old boy kept asking where it hurt and I kept pointing to my belly. But where? But where? Honestly it was hard to tell. It hurt most a few hours after I ate.
‘You think it’s in the stomach area.’
‘I guess...’
So we went to the exam room for butt stuff. It was all very clinical. I didn’t think about anything except it reminded me of the terror of getting AIDS tests back in day when it was still a new thing. Wasn’t it a like 3-4 day wait? Torture.
One thing that did keep popping into my head while I was bent over the exam table was Fletch as Mr. Babar singing Moon River.
‘Thank you, doc…you ever serve time?’
But colon cancer kills Black people at disproportionate rates, men in particular, because we have incredible stigma (from the institutions of the church and the penitentiary) about anything and everything that could be construed as GAY. And yet every single one of us has a cousins, brothers, sisters, parents that are gay. Go figure that…
Back in the office Dr Joel sat behind his stolid oak desk and I was sunk down impossibly on the other side like that first date kid at the German restaurant in Fast Times…
‘Did you know you have blood in your stool? I asked you about that and you said you hadn’t seen anything.’
‘Correct.’
‘Sometimes it’s not visible.’
Dr Joel shoved a paperwork over his desk and started reciting (half lidded, like a chant) all the potential ‘complications’ of the procedure he was to perform. Ripped tissue, vital sign failure, etc. In short, he wanted to go down into my stomach and have a look. Endoscopy. This sloppy ass guy I didn’t know half an hour - with raggedy glasses and one shirttail hanging out over his already overstrained belt - wanted to stick tubes down my throat and film a documentary.
Was this GAY? Metaphysically, probably.
Sometimes those Back to the Future Doc Brown types do be the best doctors…clearly the man lived and breathed gastroenterology. At any rate I signed the waivers and consent and he gave me a prescription for the constipation. As soon as I took the Dulcolax I didn’t know if it was worse to be totally stopped up or shitting my guts out for 8 hours.
Next day I called the office and cancelled the endoscopy…