True Story Tuesday: A Close Shave

Rachel and Mr. Daddy may not allow me to join in their weekly fun after this post, so be sure to click on over to them and check out all of the other TSTs.  This post may offend those with delicate sensibilities - consider yourself warned.

A Close Shave

I once worked for a Urologist (you know, a d*ck doctor).  Every Friday, we'd do vasectomies, so that the men would be able to lay around the house and do nothing all weekend.  Really. Doctor's orders.  No lifting anything heavier than five pounds, no yard work, no picking up the kids, nothing that would increase abdominal pressure and cause potential bleeding into the, uh, area that had just been surgically altered.  My job as the d*ck doctor's MA was to escort the patient back to the room, make sure the instruments were out, and escort the patient back out to the waiting room.  The doc was very self-sufficient and didn't require my assistance at all.  Hey, I wasn't complaining.

I moved on from my job at the Urologist to working for a family practice.  The doc I was assigned to was not necessarily a pleasure to work with.  And that may be an understatement.  He assumed (and you know what that means), since I'd worked for a d*ck doc, that I'd assisted in vasectomies.  I had not. 

We had a vasectomy scheduled on, believe it or not, my birthday.  The doc briefed me on what he wanted laid out on his surgical tray, asked me a couple of questions about how my former doctor had performed his vasectomies (which I knew from observing one) and sent me to get the patient.  I roomed the patient, instructed him to strip from the waist down and gave him a drape to cover himself with.  I went back out to tell the doc that his patient was ready and the doc asked if I'd prepped the patient. 

First miscommunication.  I had prepped the patient just like I did for the d*ck doc.  The new doc went in, got the consent form signed and came back out with more instructions, "Do a surgical prep from knees to navel and don't forget to shave."

Hmmm...I knew that my old doc had shaved a very small area on the scrotum, but that's it.  I knew for a fact that he didn't shave his patients from knees to navel.  I certainly didn't have to do the shaving and I was a bit nervous.  I took a deep breath, went back into the procedure room and told the patient I was going to have to shave him and prep the area.  Thank Lord I did have practice working with half-naked men from my previous job, so I was able to maintain a straight face when I was telling the patient was I was going to have to do.

I took another deep breath, gloved up and set to shaving.  The patient and his wife questioned the extensive shave job and I admitted that I'd never been asked to shave a patient so thoroughly before, but that each doctor has their own way of doing things.  About ten minutes into my prep, the doc came into the room to see what was taking so long, the patient was scheduled right before lunch and my long prep time was running us late.

Imagine my embarrassment when the doc came into the room and clarified his instructions. The surgical prep was to be from knees to navel, the shaving - not so much.

Happy freaking birthday to me.