Burped?, awkward exam

Last night the lady was supposed to come out to complete the van transaction.  After work, Ali and I cleaned out all of our stuff from it, I removed the license plate and internally said my goodbyes to the party van.  Earlier in the day I cancelled the insurance on it.

Well it was 8:45 and I was getting paranoid.  I thought the deal burped. “Burping” is a term we used in car sales to describe a situation where a person puts a deposit on a car but then later the deal falls through either because they changed their mind or could not get financing.  Burp deals sucked, it was like getting the rug pulled out from under you.  Well I was afraid my deal was burping so I called at 8:45 and got her voicemail, great, she isn’t answering the phone.  Well I left a nice message just asking if she still planned to come out and telling her I hoped everything was ok.  I was starting to resign myself to holding onto the PV for awhile yet, when a little after 9 my cell phone rang.  It was the buyer.  She was very apologetic, she got wrapped up in something and didn’t get a chance to call till then.  She definitely wants the van still and asked if she could pick it up Friday.  Sure thing.  I felt better after the call.

Well I had my hernia exam.  I really don’t like this place I go to.  It is a walk in place that I first went to when I got sick shortly after moving to Florida and I just never bothered to find somewhere else.  When you check in you almost feel like you are seeing a loan shark.  They totally focus on your financials and insurance up front, making sure that they will get money before they take a look at you.  It really gets things off on the wrong foot.

As I am sitting there, I hear a rough, hard to understand, heavily accented, male voice call what I think is my last name.  I poke my head around the corner and see a guy that looks like her should be driving taxi or working a newspaper stand.  He sort of looked like crazy Jim from Taxi, but shorter.  I couldn’t place his accent.  Well he was my “nurse”. 

He weighs me, takes me to the exam room, asks me a few questions about it, takes my blood pressure and temperature and then tells me I can hop off the exam table and sit in the chair.  I was supposed to be seeing a nurse practicioner that I saw before.  She helped me when my head was stuffed with ear wax a couple years ago.  So at least I knew her kind of.  So I sat there, fully dressed just waiting for the fun to begin.  The male nurse pops his head back in and says I should put on a gown he hands me and “Just take the pants off.   Oh and the opening goes in the back…”  Great…. 

So I take off my pants but leave my boxers on.  I figure they are loose enough that if she needs to cop a feel she can just move the boxers.  So I am sitting back down in the chair in my gown which is untied in the back, I couldn’t reach around to tie it.  In comes a woman in a white coat, I didn’t recognize her.  She said she was Dr whatever.  Oh, I said that she must be new, I hadn’t seen her before.  I could tell immediately that she was a bit uncomfortable from the get go because she knew where this was all leading.  I matched her discomfort easily. 

I explained to her how I thought I hurt it in the gym and how it has gotten a bit worse over time.  So she says she will do the exam.  But wait, she needs to call in a witness!  I am thinking to myself “This is just peachy”  So in walks a nurse to amplify my embarrassment level.  I stand up in front of both of them and say “Ok well I have my boxers still on, is that ok?”  She says I need to take the boxers off as well.  So now I get to sheepishly take my boxers off in front of these two women, under the gown.  Ok so I step back towards the doc, she is sitting on a stool.  You could tell every person in the room was uncomfortable with the situation, me being at the top of the list.  I could feel my face was warm, meaning it was red, leaving no doubt to how weird I felt.  Well for some reason I figured she would just reach under the gown and feel whatever she had to feel.  Instead she yanks the gown to the side and starts manipulating my junk.  She feels around and then moves stuff to the side and presses while she has me cough three times.  She tells me I have a small hernia.  Wonderful. She told the nurse witness she could leave.

 I slid my boxers back on and sat down as she told me about how they will refer me to a surgeon as that is the only way to fix it.  During the conversation the vibe was still very awkward.  She said I could put my pants on and she left.  I wondered what sort of conversations will happen as a result of my hernia exam.  I was very happy to get the hell out of there but now I have the fun of a potential hernia surgery looming.  I haven’t called the surgeon’s office yet. 

I will not deal with this very well.  Even hearing people talking about stuff like vasectomies makes me ill at times.  The idea of someone messing around with anything located between my belly button and upper thighs just goes through me.