And Now For Something Completely Humiliating

What I am about to share with you is completely confidential. Yeah, right. This is the internet. What I am about to share with you is completely humiliating to yours truly, but in the event that some stupid male reads this and is helped to overcome his pride, it will be worth it.

As many of you know, I just recovered from a near-death experience from contracting some sort of killer sickness while traveling in India. You might be thinking, "Near death? Brad, we didn't know it was so bad!" Well, once my fever surged past 104 and I had to strip down to my birthday suit and submerge myself in cold water, I asked God to kill me. He refused. I consider that pretty close.

Back to the point. Over the course of the past week, I have been experiencing some symptoms I believe are left over from the murderous diarrhea that conspired with the fever to kill me. Not to be too gross, but I've been passing blood in my stool. EWWWWW!!!

Flash back with me about 8 years. I am a young, single, healthy male of about 23 years of age. One night, during a church service no less, I began to experience excruciating pain in my abdomen. The Kenyan Boys Choir was in the middle of singing, "Soon and Very Soon We are Going to See the King", I was honestly thinking, "Yes, and one of us sooner than you think!"

I went from the Church straight to the emergency room where I was met by a man over 6'3" and around 250lbs. He would be my ER doctor. After checking me out and asking about my symptoms (I was having trouble using the bathroom.) He says, "I'm gonna have to check you out. This is gonna hurt...I have big hands. Sorry."

At that point in time, I had no idea what he was talking about. But when he pulled out the Vaseline and put on the rubber gloves, I broke into a sweat. I believe that was the first time I asked God to kill me. (The cold bath experience being the third.) He found out through his "exam" that I had prostatitis. I took some antibiotics and was cured in a few days. Violated, but cured.

This episode made a psychological scar on my male psyche. It was so deep, in fact, that when I recently found blood in my stool I thought, "Oh Lord...no...not the rubber glove test!" I knew that was what was going to have to be done. There was no avoiding it.

So, I choose the smallest doctor in town and I went to see him. They checked my stool culture and asked me some questions. I answered honestly, but the whole time I'm thinking, "Let's just get this over with, man." Eventually, the doctor sighed and said, "I don't like doing this...but I'm going to have to check you." (Doctors call it "checking you" or "examining you". Thankfully, they seem nearly as uncomfortable with this as I do.) I sighed as well. Up to that point, I was thinking that under different circumstances we could have become friends, but after this it's just hard, you know? The funniest thing was while the Doc was probing me he asked, "Does that hurt there?" I said, "Dude, you have your finger in my butt. It hurts, okay?" How am I supposed to answer that question, people?!

There is a reason that I have shared this mortifying story with you all. One is that it is just too funny not to share. Secondly, some of you men will die if you do not go and get your colon/prostate checked out. Prostate and colon cancer are two of the most survivable cancers there are, but men die from them all the time because they are too stupid to go and get their butt checked. In the midst of your check-up, you can thank God that he didn't make you a woman. I dread my wife's trip to the gynecologist for her.