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Medical fun and games - Game four - in which I get a needle inserted through my perineum and I die (again)

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Game four - in which I get a needle inserted through my perineum and I die (again)

The perineum is the area between the penis and the anus and it's adjacent to the prostate. Once through the perineum the sampling needle is repeatedly stabbed into the prostate, as if it were a pin cushion, to extract cells from its different regions. This is done using an ultrasound probe in the anus, to image the process, and with the patient under a total anaesthetic - unaware.

So I lay on a hospital trolley, a cannula was inserted by a pleasant woman and everything went black - dead again - until I heard an angelic voice: "Richard! wake up." 

So I had to rely on Wikipedia to find out what happened:

transperineal prostate biopsyCancer Research UK <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 

There was no pain - analgesics not required - but it was uncomfortable - and no where near as much fun as the scanner. And I was passing blood in my urine for around two weeks. Julia was unsympathetic: "young women suffer that every month," she told me.

I was still confident it would all be a wild goose chase. But then the surgeon called me: "You have a left mid-post-lateral tumour (Gleeson 4+3) and while it is not critically urgent you need to do something about it soon. Sometime within the next three months would be a good idea."

 

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Travel

The United States of America – East Coast

 

 

In the late seventies I lived and worked in New York.  My job took me all around the United States and Canada.  So I like to go back occasionally; the last time being a couple of years ago with my soon to be wife Wendy.  She had never been to New York so I worked up an itinerary to show her the highlights in just a few days.  We also decided to drive to Washington DC and Boston. 

 

Read more: The United States of America – East Coast

Fiction, Recollections & News

Are we the same person we once were?

 

 

 

I was initially motivated to write this cautionary note by the controversy surrounding the United States Senate hearing into the appointment of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court that was briefly called into question by Dr Christine Blasey Ford's testimony that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both in their teens.

Kavanaugh is but one of many men who have come to the attention of the '#MeToo' movement, some of whom are now cooling their heels in jail.

Like the Kavanaugh example, a number of these cases, as reported in the media, seem to rely on someone's memory of events long past.  Yet as I will argue below after a decade or so our memories are anything but reliable.  After that time we should be respecting the accused's legal right to be presumed innocent, unless there is contemporary immutable evidence (diaries photographs and so on) or a number of non-colluding witnesses or others who have suffered a similar assault. 

Now in the news another high profile person has been convicted of historical sexual assault.  Cardinal George Pell has appealed his conviction on several charges relating to historical paedophilia.

There is just one accuser, the alleged victim.  A second alleged victim took his own life some time ago. The case was heard twice and in total 22 of the 24 jurors decided in favour of the alleged victim, despite the best defence money could buy.  Yet, as with the '#MeToo' movement in respect of powerful men, there is currently worldwide revulsion (see my Ireland Travel Notes) at sexual crimes committed within the Roman Catholic Church, such that a Cardinal is likely to be disbelieved, just as at one time a choir boy's accusations against a bishop or a priest would have been, and were, dismissed.

Both trials were held in closed court and the proceedings are secret so we have no knowledge of any supporting evidence. We do know that the two alleged victims were members of the Cathedral Choir and at least one other ex-choir boy also gave evidence. So justice may have been served. 

Yet I'm just a little concerned about the historical nature of the charges.  How reliable is anyone's memory? 

Read more: Are we the same person we once were?

Opinions and Philosophy

How does electricity work?

 

 

 

The electrically literate may find this somewhat simplified article redundant; or possibly amusing. They should check out Wikipedia for any gaps in their knowledge.

But I hope this will help those for whom Wikipedia is a bit too complicated and/or detailed.


All cartoons from The New Yorker - 1925 to 2004

Read more: How does electricity work?

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