Playing Fair and Being Kind

And other life altering traumas for better or worse.

 Probably the worst ever thing to happen to me was ‘bright-light birth’. I was not aware of its existence before it arrived, to the best of my knowledge. I mean no one told me that I was going to suffer this embarrassment. It just came along and when it did I must have been totally insulted. I was born in a Salvation Army maternity ward down in a section of Boston that is now the flower exchange. Not too far from Boston City Hospital. I think I cost seventy-five cents. Not a bad deal, in my estimation. Either way. Of course, we all know that bright-light birth is probably the worst thing that can be visited upon us. One moment we’re in the womb, kicking back and listening to the beats of our crib. Just chilling and doing time for all we know. Then an intrusion breaks the spell. We are then rudely pushed out of our warm surroundings into a cold, noisy existence, brightly lit, bunch of huge cold hands grasping our parts and doing all sorts of violence to us. It’s too much. I can’t go through with all of the description. No wonder I screamed so loud and turned out so messed up. ADHD, alcoholism, stuttering for 17 years or more, left handed, curly hair and all. My bitterness and dislike of other humans can be blamed squarely on bright-light birth. Oh, yeah…fear of heights too.

The intent of this essay is to examine those external violence’s that produced a normal and healthy sense of dread in me when the realization of their existence arrived in my life. I think the next piece of news that scared the crap out of me was the mention by older boys that there was this thing that everyone had to go through called the square needle in the left nut. The square needle in the left nut news came from various quadrants and levels. Beginning around my senior year in high school and at un-scheduled variables thereafter. The needle thing showed up for anything to do with a new phase of life much like an initiation. In the Navy, bootcamp to be specific, what with all the needles and probing that were delivered daily, it was not too far fetched to believe the square needle in the left nut was a sure thing to be delivered any day. I mean c’mon. What was not to be believed in this atmosphere? Here we were, us recruits, usually lined up naked, told to close up the spacing while in line with this one brutal admonition; “Close it up! Close it up! Let’s go! Close it up! Asshole to bellybutton! Close it up.” I laugh now but not when I was in line between two guys who were half a foot taller than I. We were all kind of skittish. Touching was way outside our comfort zone. Especially touching front to back, but we did it. After a while, with all of the degradation and inhumanity pushed at us we didn’t give a royal fuck about a little square needle in the left nut. Bring it! (Spoiler: It didn’t exist.)

I was released from boot camp torture with the rest of the men and then we went off to various duties for the Navy. My duty was to go about two miles across the Naval Training Center in Great Lakes, Illinois to Electronics Technician, ET, school. The school was very long, about seven months. To be an ET required a great deal of ability to move into new areas of learning with ease. In those decades of new technology anyone who was interested in the new thought were considered to be “geeks”. We were also thought to be a sub-set of ‘manly’. We were considered sissies, effeminate. This is where the castration by waveguide switch fable came into play.

In those years, when I went to ET school, 1957-58, there were really old components and mechanical devices to study. Modern electronics were yet to be imagined. Most of our components were large, clumsy, and made to last, like the model T. One component that was brought to the fore in our mind was the radar waveguide switch. It was a large piece of square tubing that guided the great amount of energy from the radar transmitter to the radar antenna in an efficient manner. The switch was used to isolate the transmissions by stopping the energy flow though the square tube waveguide. It was operated remotely by an electric pulse that slammed the switch open or shut with a loud mechanical click. The motion of the switch in the waveguide could not be observed because the metal blade shutting off the metal tube moved so quickly. Faster than the blink of an eye. This was the device that all of us knew was going to be used when we finished ET school to make us ET’s. We were going to be castrated upon graduation with this metal blade by dangling our testicles into the waveguide and letting the switch make us eunuchs. None of us believed the story. Much. We had it on our minds though the closer we got to graduation.

These fear inducing myths were manufactured in order to scare the rest of us. I’ve done a little of this myth stuff myself over the years after I became mean spirited. A natural progression I suppose. After this the real things, non-myths, began to show up. I mean the stuff that was really used on people that induced a sense of dread. Things like the Silver Stallion. This is the device used by a proctologist to examine your innards. Specifically, your colon. The procedure is called a colonoscopy. Before you ever get near a proctologist their reputation arrives with grand exaggeration. The device, call it what you want, is mostly in the imagination. There are a few different names for various reasons. Anoscope, proctoscope, rectoscope, a rose by any other name, etc., are used to examine the bowel. This begins usually after the age of 50. Makes one want to live a shorter life. Ask anyone about the device and they will hold index fingers up about eighteen inches apart with an expression of awe. Believe them or not you get a nice gentle knock-out before the procedure starts that make you not give two shits. Pun intended. Bring it on!

In my case I exhibited such grace under fire that the attending nurse and I spent a lovely date together about a month later.

Of course, if one lives long enough there is this thing called the roto-rooter that is used to clean out the urethra. Many men know that the older we get the more chances of having to scrape the insides of our dick with a spinning razor device much like the sewer cleaning mechanism advertised; Roto-Rooter! Razor Clean! Yikes! Actually, it is called a TURP which stands for Trans Urethral Resection Procedure. Don’t ask me to describe the device. I have never wanted to see it. I’ve had it done two times. It helped me to pee but there must be a better way. This real, non-imagined device of torture for many has been a living nightmare for many moons. It is barbaric and for most reasons medieval. Do older people have to endure these crude objects because we are living longer? Jeezum Crow!!!

This segues into the self-catheter procedure. After the TURP I needed to wear a bag to drain my bladder. The bag was attached to a catheter that traversed the distance from bag to bladder via a tube that ran through my dick. That’s about as genteel as I can get. I carried that thing for about ten days and I got very intimate with it. One good thing, it saves trips to the bathroom.

The first time a urologist tried to push a catheter into me it was a total failure. Two young doctors didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. Fail, big time. I went home, a hundred and sixty miles away with no catheter. About half way my urethra was jammed shut from medications and trauma from minor surgery. (There is no such thing as minor surgery, by the way.) I needed to urinate and nothing came out when I tried. My bladder was filling up from all the liquids I was given by the two tyros from hell. My bladder was reaching excruciating proportions. The pain was unbelievable. By the time I reached Boothbay from Brighton, Massachusetts I was suffering. In my understated way I was reporting that I was feeling ‘uncomfortable’. Inside I was in agony. Ginny McLellan, (God rest her soul), my neighbor who was on duty as nurse at St. Andrews hospital in the Harbor, put a catheter in me that was slick-as-snot. She did it in zero point one seconds flat. Thank you, Ginny!!! That was my first exercise in catheterization. Thereafter I was directed on occasion to put one in on my own. I often dreaded the day that would happen. I was beginning to find that after a surgery of any sort that required anesthesia, a condition of no ability to pee followed. I always needed to be wearing a catheter and a bag for a period of about ten days after surgery. This brought about the need for me to insert the catheter on my own. Happily, the thing was a lot smaller in dimension than the regular Foley. The self-inserted one was like a spaghetti noodle and wasn’t left in. Insert, drain bladder, remove. Simple. The idea of doing it was a dreaded anticipation however.

Let’s see, what’s left? Oh! O.K. The needle in the eye-ball. Now who would ever think of a needle in the eye-ball? No one, of course. The idea never enters the mind unless it is imagined as a torturous method seen in a horror movie. I used to imagine things of that sort just being idle and day dreaming. Now it is a real thing in my life. This happened just the other day. Last Thursday to be exact. I am in possession of a condition called macular degeneration. This is a condition where the eye ball retina is becoming old and spongy. The structure begins to delaminate much like an old sheet of plywood. The spaces that open up at the back of the eye separate and allow schmutz to collect in areas. This causes shadows to show up in one’s vision like a gray spot in the middle near the focal point. Allowed to progress the spot spreads and eventually blinds that eye. Only peripheral objects are seen, but not directly.

The procedure to correct this, calls for a needle in the eye; an injection of a liquid solution into the back of the eye that will help flush the schmutz and close the gap that held all the yucko shit. The correction takes longer than what I suggest. I need to go in for injections of the magic potion every five weeks for a while and then ninety days apart thereafter. Now to get the magic potion to the right place the doctor puts a needle with syringe into the eye ball a little to the side and as far back as he can to find the delaminated retina. Stab, squirt, squirt, pull out and it’s over. No fuss, no muss. I was relieved as you can imagine when the doctor did something and I saw a puddle of something in my eye and he said, “O.K. That’s it.” Easy peasy.

Well, there you have it. Other than dog bites and heights and loud noises without warning that about wraps up the traumas I’ve experienced. Well, there are other ghastly ones but they don’t need to be aired here. Things that gifted me with PTSD. We’ll leave them to die slowly.

Have a great day, mis amigos. I love you all. Well, most of you anyway.

Peace out,
G. M. Goodwin
6 October 2018