Love the Glove!

      I've seen the commercial three or four times now. It shows men wearing a variety of different kinds of gloves and talking about how much the men love wearing those gloves, for a variety of reasons. We're talking hockey gloves, golf gloves, those kinds of things.
   The kicker comes at the end of the commercial. Apparently the one kind of glove that terrifies men, however, is the surgical  glove used for digital rectal exams. These exams are part and parcel of the fight against prostate cancer. Simply put, they involve having a doctor insert a couple of fingers into your rectum in order to reach up and feel the prostate gland for irregularities and size.

   Men tend to be squeamish about this, for some reason. We generally have been able to avoid foreign intrusions to our bodies, apart from dental instruments perhaps, for most of our lives. We have not had the same opportunities women receive on a regular basis to have our legs up in stirrups and our private parts bared to the world. Generally, it's a part of the body we don't even want to have to deal with ourselves, let alone have someone else poking away down there. I think also there is a male macho tendency to think of themselves as impenetrable, both emotionally and physically. A digital rectal exam hits hard in both areas.
   If we let it.
   And there's really no reason why we should. Men are out there dying for no reason other than they were misinformed about the disease or were aware of some of the preventative measures and refused to make the appointment. Out of all the reasons there might be for a life to end prematurely, let's not let misinformation or macho misgivings lead us there!
   I have had digital rectal exams many times. It is pretty well standard procedure for a man in his fifties, if he's having regular physicals. My doctor has also regularly filled out requisitions for me to get PSA bloodwork. PSA stands for prostate-specific antigens. These particular antigens are proteins that can be measured and, depending on their levels, can be indicative of the presence of prostatic tumours.
   Part of the problem with digital exams and PSA testing, though, is that neither one is definitive in a diagnosis of prostate cancer. Digital rectal exams are only able to access the front and a little bit of the sides of the prostate gland. PSA testing sometimes will produce false positives and negatives or miss the presence of cancer altogether. That is why it is so important to have both, on a regular basis, to obtain a baseline, if for no other reason.

colonoscope

   Another procedure in the battle against prostate cancer is the colonoscopy. This involves being mildly sedated and having a long, slender colonoscope inserted through your rectum and and up into your colon. It has the ability to not only take a picture of the inside of your colon but also obtain a biopsy of anything suspicious-looking. Generally, a colonoscopy is something a doctor would recommend if any of the results of your regular PSA and digital exams suggested that there had been a significant change in your prostate. I have never had a colonoscopy but I have accompanied people to them and they are not that big a deal, believe me.
   Of course, none of the above is really "pretty". But it is necessary, if you're a man in his forties or fifties who has a family and/or friends depending on him being around in his sixties and beyond.
   Talk to your doctor and find out what your risk factors are. Talk to your friends who might already have had any of these procedures. Chances are you'll find out their experiences weren't that traumatic.
   My advice to all you other men of a certain age out there is to love the glove, don't fidget 'round the digit, don't let the hand be banned and let the finger linger! Being a man sometimes means you have to be a man!