BODY IMAGE, POKED AND PRODDED

 It probably would not surprise anyone who reads this blog that I have, over the years, dealt with more than a handful of body image issues, some of which were brought on by the very experiences that eventually led me to being pretty indifferent about nudity.

I've mentioned before the fact that my body, particularly my left side inguinal area, has been the subject of much attention from the medical community. That dates from childhood, and as a young boy I was pretty self-conscious about one particular scar left over from a kidney operation. It runs from my back to just shy of my stomach, and once puberty set in it grew to be an eventual eight inches of pretty obvious scarring to anyone who sees me with my shirt off. Given that the surgery was conducted in the 1960s - before the advent of many modern surgical techniques - it's a pretty nasty looking affair.

Later, a series of abdominal surgeries - three umbilical hernias (the belly button) - also left prominent scars on my navel.

Been there, done that. Seven times.

An emergency tracheotomy left an inch long mark on my throat. And, of course, three hernias in my groin and last year's removal of my left vas deferens have my crotch criss-crossed with a variety of slightly off-color lines. 

It's a cinch I'll never be one of those guys who shaves their pubes. I can't even imagine the Frankenstein-like flesh I'd present these days.

(Fortunately, I am blessed with a full head of hair. After a childhood which my mother described as having "Led with your head," I'm pretty sure my noggin is as tic-tac-toe as my groin.)

But each scar tells a story, and I've learned to accept each and not be embarrassed about having a less-than-perfect body. Do I wish I weighed fifty pounds less and had no scars? Do I wish my cock was an inch or so longer? Do I wish I had the physique I had forty years ago in college? 

Of course, but I have what I have and do the best I can with it on a daily basis.

So I've learned to accept that each scar, each imperfection, tells a part of the story of my life.

By far the largest, the one on my abdomen tells the story of my ongoing battle with my left kidney. (For the record, the kidney started it.) The scar is from a partial removal of that kidney, a major surgery with a fair amount of internal and external scarring which had the lasting effect of constricting my ureter (the tube that runs from the kidney to the bladder). 

As I grew, the scar tissue around the ureter constricted the tube further, leading to additional damage to the kidney. Eventually I had two procedures to open up the tube, which required the doctor to use my penis as an access route to slide a plastic tube, called a stent, into the ureter, breaking apart the scar tissue and allowing the ureter to heal around the stent.

Luckily they put me out for the insertion, but I was fully awake for the removal. And they had to do the insertion and removal a second time after determining the first didn't take. 

(I honestly believe it was this surgery which led me onto the road of being uninhibited about nudity. For the removal I had both a doctor and nurse present in a small examination room in his office. The first time around the doctor put a draping paper sheet, then tore a hole in it and pulled my dick up through the hole, which I thought was pretty absurd and told him so. He laughed, bunched up the paper and proceeded. The second time he didn't even bother. For the first procedure I was nuts-up with my dick as the focus for a good twenty minutes. The second took even longer - almost forty minutes - and the doctor hadn't used the numbing agent. The nurse was standing at my side, watching the procedure and squeezing my arm to tell me "we're almost done.")

Around two years later, with a different urologist, we found a pretty major inguinal hernia, stemming from my childhood. When I was a kid my left testicle would periodically withdraw into my body core, a condition known as an undescended testicle. Mine had descended, but apparently the cavity where it resided in utero (before I was born) remained large enough that my left nut - who would go on to trouble me years later - pulled up. During puberty this changed as the testicle grew larger than the cavity, preventing its retreat.

Mirror image of the hernia scar

Unfortunately, this left a hole for the contents of my abdomen to seep through, filling a portion of my groin and scrotum with fat and other contents. It wasn't too painful, but definitely uncomfortable and gave the general area and nut a squishy texture.

(It went undiagnosed by several doctors, who gave me the usual "turn your head and cough" exams. Finally, I just told my then current urologist "That's not where it hurts," He then moved to where I indicated and announced "Ah, we have a winner!" His words, not mine.)

(The subsequent surgery took more than an hour and I'll spare you the description of the complications involved. It took quite a while to recover, and left a two inch scar. In the image at the left it's the dark line at the center of the picture. This is a mirror image, btw, the shot is really of my left side in a mirror.)

Regular readers here have followed the ten-year ordeal which resulted in surgery last December to remove a calcified vas deferens - spermatic cord - and finally give me some permanent relief from ongoing pain. 

And so it goes. The years off surgery, and the post-marriage years of declining health - fortunately reversed in the last five years - left me with some visual scarring, some mental scarring and more than a few body-image issues over the years. It's a feeling virtually everyone shares, and once you realize that very few - VERY few - people have perfect bodies, then it's easier to say "fuckit" and get on with your life.

And I'm hoping that's where I am. Mentally, it's healthier than spending your time covering yourself and being embarrassed. Physically, it's empowering to accept yourself and be naked - mentally and physically - in your life. You have what you have. Period. It's part of who you are, and I've learned to accept that.

And so it goes.

Seriously, Doc, again?