Urologists: A Cautionary Tale

 

(Please note: I'm not a scientist or a doctor and at times common sense fails me.)

EMERGENCY! THERE'S URINE IN YOUR BLADDER!

That's all it took for the good people at the urologist's office to leap into action. Within moments of the bladder scan, they had my pants down and were sticking a plastic tube up my pecker until it hit pay dirt and piss started flowing out and into a beaker which the nurse held steadily. When it finally stopped she made note of the volume of my discharge. It wasn't ounces. It was something else, like millimeters but not millimeters, something foreign, maybe metric, that pertains to measuring liquid. They sent me home with a handful of tubes (I later learned that they were called catheters) and my life was permanently changed.

For the worse.

Looking back, I realize now that urine in your bladder is not an unusual situation and definitely not fatal. I mean, even if you take a leak and empty your bladder completely urine starts collecting almost immediately, increasing until you feel the need to go again. But I wasn't thinking on that particular day and had no idea, like I do now, what could possibly go wrong and immediately fell for Coast Plains Urology's spiel and gobbled up their game plan like a dog slurping gravy.

I probably shouldn't refer to this period as the good old days since I was already half-way up Shits Creek, but theoretically I could've still peed on my own if I hadn't been obsessed with emptying my bladder and I was using straight catheters which in retrospect was a blessing.

Then came the casual mention of a procedure, commonly called the roto-rooter, which would allow me to pass urine like water through a fire hose. Oh Lord, wouldn't that be wonderful?

So, I toyed with the idea a couple weeks and finally decided to go for it. What could I lose? I mean, no one mentioned a down side. 

Turns out, I wasn't a good candidate for the procedure because I was suffering from an underactive bladder (often seen with diabetes which I suffer from) where the bladder muscle may not squeeze when it needs to. Blindly, I went ahead with the procedure that was destined to fail. My reward? The passage way was permanently screwed up so that going on my own was no longer a possibility and my days of using straight catheters was over. I endured two subsequent procedures, both promising, at most, that I'd soon be pissing a river and, at least, that I'd once again be able to use a straight catheter. Both failed. 

Being able to use the straight catheter is not a small point. These things cost about $!0 a piece. (I'm not suggesting a kick back or any other incentive for recruiting catheter customers.) Back before the first procedure, I was guaranteed 100% success when inserting the catheter into the bladder. Once the pathway was torn apart and I had to use a special catheter with a curved tip my odds went down to 50%. 

Then, there's the UTI's. Very common I'm told in people using catheters. More complicated for me because I'm also an insulin dependent diabetic and when I'm in the throws of a UTI with the accompanying fever my sugar gets out of control. These were a recurring problem for years before a girl at the urology office put me on a low-dose antibiotic that I take daily. So far, they're working... I think.

My wife and I used to like to travel. My diabetes never got in the way but the need to self-cath does. I mean it isn't something you'd want to do in a filthy truck stop, rest area or fast food eatery's bathroom. Or even in a hotel bathroom. So, we've completely cut out the overnighters. We stay pretty close to home.

All because of one dumb-assed trip to the urologist.

Handy Andy by Ace Toscano

Andrew was a liar. Most people in the family knew that but, as for the outside world, I doubted they cared enough to investigate. He had just finished giving Aunt Violet the semi-polished version of his latest fiction. He had told her that the only reason he hadn't done more for our father during his last days was that when I came home from Idaho four months ago I had immediately taken over. Of course, Aunt Vi knew the truth. She had been one of the relatives who called me out in Boise, where, incidentally, I had moved to get as far away from the old man as possible, to tell me my mother needed help and Andrew, who still lived at home, mind you, wasn't providing any. None. Zero. Zilch. So, despite my deep hatred of the abusive bastard I called Dad, I came back to Jersey resigned to fulfill my duty as the firstborn son.

Now, for some insane reason, here was Andrew attempting to rewrite history. I felt like punching the fucker in the face but restrained myself because that wouldn't suit my mother who preferred to project an image of familial harmony as false as that in reality was. Vi looked at me shaking her head knowingly. I wondered how many people would be told that lie. Lots, I decided. But two thousand miles and my new life would insulate me from caring better than a 2 x 6 wall.

I made another trip to the truck to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. I returned to the kitchen just in time to hear my mother explain to someone, “But Andrew would've been willing to help too if Junior hadn't been here.” She was in survival mode. Without the old man around to call the shots, now, she was stuck here with Andrew and had to tread softly.

I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I'm ready to go ma,” I said.

“Oh, drive careful, Junior. And thank you again for everything you did.”

“It was nothing. I'm sure Handy Andy would've pitched in if I wasn't here.” I said that with a chuckle.

The self-satisfied smirk on Andrew's face faded fast.

The End

You're No Lincoln, Mr. Trump

Abraham Lincoln (March 4, 1861 - April 15, 1865)

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865) was the sixteenth President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1861 until his assassination. As an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States, Lincoln won the Republican Party nomination in 1860 and was elected president later that year. During his term, he helped preserve the United States by leading the defeat of the secessionist Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. He introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865.

Lincoln closely supervised the victorious war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including Ulysses S. Grant. Historians have concluded that he handled the factions of the Republican Party well, bringing leaders of each faction into his cabinet and forcing them to cooperate. Lincoln successfully defused a war scare with the United Kingdom in 1861. Under his leadership, the Union took control of the border slave states at the start of the war. Additionally, he managed his own reelection in the 1864 presidential election.

Opponents of the war (also known as "Copperheads") criticized him for refusing to compromise on the slavery issue. Conversely, the Radical Republicans, an abolitionist faction of the Republican Party, criticized him for moving too slowly in abolishing slavery. Even with these problems, Lincoln successfully rallied public opinion through his rhetoric and speeches; his Gettysburg Address is but one example of this. At the close of the war, Lincoln held a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to speedily reunite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation. His assassination in 1865 was the first presidential assassination in U.S. history and made him a martyr for the ideal of national unity 

Quotes

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God, cannot long retain it."

"And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."

Noteworthy Sites

• Biography of Abraham Lincoln
• Essays on Abraham Lincoln and His Administration
• Abraham Lincoln Research Site
• Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project
• Lincoln Studies: Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War
• C-Span: Lincoln 200 Years 

The Nightmare Scenario: Donald J. Trump

 When a Failed TV Talk Show Host Lands in the White House

Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946, New York, New York) was the forty-fifth President of the United States. Trump portrays himself as the very definition of the American success story. Throughout his life he has continually, though sometimes falsely, promoted himself as the epitome of business and entrepreneurial excellence, with his interests in real estate, sports, and entertainment. His entry into politics and public service, powered by his carefully crafted TV persona, resulted in the Presidential victory in 2016.

After graduating from the Wharton School of Finance, Mr. Trump followed in his father’s footsteps as a real estate developer, and he entered the world of real estate development in New York. The Trump signature soon became synonymous with the most prestigious of addresses in Manhattan and subsequently throughout the world.

Mr. Trump announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015, and after seventeen Republican contenders suspended their campaigns, he accepted the Republican nomination for President of the United States in July of 2016. After a vigorous campaign that consisted of persistent attacks on his opponent Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump won the election on November 8 of 2016. Though he preferred to view his victory as a landslide, citing the fact that he won over 2,600 counties nationwide, the most since President Reagan in 1984, the truth is he lost the popular vote to Clinton by 3 million votes.

Trump campaigned in places he knew Republicans have had difficulty winning like Flint, Michigan, charter schools in inner-city Cleveland, and Hispanic churches in Florida, never ceasing his attacks on Secretary Clinton. The strategy worked.

President Trump has been married to his third wife, Melania, for twelve years and they are parents to their son, Barron. Additionally, Mr. Trump has four adult children, Don Jr., Ivanka, Eric and Tiffany, and eight grandchildren.

From the beginning, the Trump Presidency was mired in scandal and controversy. Associates were indicted and some confessed to crimes during his first year. Many pundits doubted he would finish his term. On December 18, 2019, he was impeached by the House of Representatives for strong-arming the Ukranian Government to intercede in our election on his behalf thus becoming the third president in U.S. history to be so disgraced. Because the Republican majority in the Senate cast a blind eye on his crimes, he was not removed from office.

Throughout his term, he undermined confidence in the intelligence service, the Justice Department and the press. He opposed all who espoused opinions contrary to his own false and erratic narrative.

When he lost the 2020 election by a landslide, in his typical petty fashion, he claimed he was the victim of voter fraud and refused to admit defeat. He refused to allow his government to brief incoming Joe Biden's administration, thereby insuring against a smooth transition and putting the country in further jeopardy.

On January 6th, 2021, energized by "The Big Lie" that the election had been stolen from Trump, a group of insurgents, incited by Mr. Trump and his associates, stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of the electoral votes. People died and the lives of members of congress, as well as Vice President Pence and his family, were threatened. The insurgents, following the lead of the out-going President, chanted "Hang Mike Pence" and constructed a mock gallows on the Capitol grounds.

As a result of his role in the vicious attacks, Trump was impeached for a second time. Though acquitted by a partisan senate, he was considered guilty in the eyes of the country. His legacy will be one of racism, bigotry, lawlessness, treason and, due to his inept handling of the corona-virus, a country crippled by a pandemic.

2023 found Trump assailed with an abundance of legal woes, including 90+ indictments. Even so, he remained the Republican Party's leading candidate for the Presidency. As always, his constant lying swayed a large part of the electorate who, unfortunately, fail to see through them.

Quotes

"It is what it is."

"Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war."

"You have to think anyway, so why not think big?"

"Without passion you don't have energy, with out energy you have nothing."

"When somebody challenges you, fight back. Be brutal, be tough."

Noteworthy Sites

¹ Donald J. Trump - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Trump Cabinet
A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America
Books by Donald J. Trump
Intimate Portrait of Donald J. Trump by his Niece
Reports on Trump at The Newyorker

My Ancestors

 

Early picture of the Toscano family. 

Starting in the upper left and going clockwise, Rose, Mike, Grandmother Fracesca, Antonia (my father Louis's twin who died in infancy), Anna and Julius. My father, Luigi, isn't pictured. 

Nurturing Racism by Ace Toscano

 

He never had an innocent encounter with a little black child by the swings of his local playground. Or by the water fountain. Or taking turns on the slide. Or on the see-saw. Without color being a thing. Just kids at play.

He didn't live around black people.

Black people didn't live around him.

The first time he saw a black person in the flesh was indelibly imprinted on his mind. They were out in the country, all piled into his father's two toned green '49 Chevy, taking one of those Sunday drives many people used to enjoy back in the early 1950's. They were passing an area he'd since learned to identify as “the onion fields” when one of his mother's sisters declared excitedly, “Look, there's a nigger.” Someone hushed her but someone else soon observed, “He's been out in the sun too long – he's burnt.” They all giggled.

His father turned to him as they sped by and swore an oath, “You'll never have to work in the fields like that.” It seemed he had high hopes for his son.

As he recalled that man, a shirtless giant, his black face and upper body glistening with sweat, standing a short way off the road, towering over their car, he was convinced that in reality on that fateful day he had been a much smaller distant figure.

Yet the impact he had had on his life was enormous.

Getting My Ass Back to Casper by Ace Toscano

My old man was always fussy about the process of shitting. I can't remember my toilet training, but I'm sure the psychologists would feast on the details. He did have several hard and fast rules about toilet paper usage which I've also managed to forget. When he was near the end, dying of cancer, the hospice people put one of those white plastic potties alongside his hospital bed so he wouldn't have to make the journey across the hall to the bathroom every time he had to relieve himself or move his bowels. We had a procedure. He would indicate to me he wanted to use the potty. I would go to the side of the bed, extend my index fingers to him, then, after he took one in each hand, pull him up to a sitting position as he swung his legs off the side of the bed. I'd help him over to the potty, then leave him to it. We'd done it many times during the four months I'd been there and it had become a smooth operation.

But one day, after he had moved his bowels he asked me to wipe his ass. This was something new. He had never asked this of me before so I was understandably taken aback, yet feeling charitable at that particular moment, I figured what the hell and decided to give it the old college try. Unfortunately, I had never wiped anyone's ass before so I had no idea where to start or in which direction to go. It wasn't as if somewhere along the line I had taken a tutorial on how to properly wipe someone else's ass. My indecision and hesitation pissed him off – he'd never been a patient man – and he rather viciously tore the toilet paper out of my hand and completed the process himself. As I took his offering across the hall and flushed it down the toilet, I couldn't help laughing. Here he was, near death, still being the same nasty and abusive shit he'd always been.

“Wipe your own ass, you old fuck,” I thought but didn't say. There wouldn't have been any sense in that – he didn't have much time left anyway.

Funny thing about my situation was that I had spent my whole childhood avoiding him and my entire adulthood escaping him. You might think that Casper, Wyoming was far enough away from Long Island to give me the peace I craved, the peace I deserved, but turned out it wasn't. Sure, he couldn't drop by in his car, though he did do that once with horrific results, yet, as much as I wanted to be free of him, he couldn't bring himself to fucking leave me alone. He insisted on calling me every Saturday like clockwork. I dreaded the ringing of the phone and I dreaded the sound of his voice. It always struck me like a gut punch. But I always spoke to him because I knew my mother wanted me to. Even so, our conversations consisted of meaningless chatter. I didn't want to know what he was up to and, not wanting to prolong the call, I wasn't about to tell him what was going on in my life. Still, the calls kept coming.

A few months back, my aunts – my mother's sisters – started calling to tell me my mother needed help taking care of the old man and that my brother, Roger, who I liked to refer to as “Roger the Lodger” since he was 40 and still living home, wouldn't pitch in at all. Ironically, when the old man did expire and people praised me for having cared for him those final months, Roger, clad in his red MAGA cap, told anyone willing to listen that he would've helped if I hadn't come home and taken over. I even heard my mother defend him to somebody one day with the same line of shit but by that time all I cared about was getting home to my wife and our favorite stretch of fly fishing water so I let it slide.

The church service was unremarkable but when we got to the cemetery things turned into a real shit show when Roger's girlfriend, Rhonda, threw herself on the casket. I don't know if it was spontaneous or if Roger had convinced her to do it. It wouldn't have been hard since she was simpler than a two piece jigsaw puzzle. Ironically, despite her huge sense of loss, the old man had disliked her and always referred to her as “the idiot.”

If, in the telling, I have sounded a wee bit irreverent that's not accidental. The old man was a brutal, abusive bastard. He liked to kick my mother and shove her through the cellar door and lock it. I can still here her pleading softly so the other people in the duplex wouldn't hear, “Tony, please, please let me out. Let me out, Tony, please.” Eventually, it would fall on me to let her out. If he was still in the kitchen, she'd scamper away until it was safe.

As you might suspect, he kicked the shit out of me, too, whenever he got the chance, hence the eternal resentment.

One day when I was sixteen I had finally had enough. He was chasing my mother around the dining room table, gritting his teeth, snarling, his face dripping sweat, when I stepped in between them, raised my fists and told him to cut the fuckin' shit. For weeks afterward, my mother told me I had hurt his feelings and urged me to apologize. That never happened and, frankly, I was disappointed that she wanted me to.

Anyway, I never wanted anything to do with him which is why I moved to Wyoming and, now that he was safely in the ground, wasn't going to waste any time getting my ass back to Casper.

The End