Me, my dad and his prostate

It’s midnight in the waiting room at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, and my dad’s catheter is malfunctioning. He’s doubled over in pain I can compare only to the male equivalent of childbirth. It doesn’t look pleasant.

Let’s back up to why I’m discussing a 71-year-old’s urology in the first place. The reason is simple: If you happen to possess male genitalia, then this is your ultimate fate — if you’re lucky.

If you live long enough, the truism is that you don’t have to wonder if your prostate will begin to malfunction. The question is when.

My dad has walked me through a number of life’s pleasant and unpleasant realities, everything from how to navigate romantic misadventures to how to unclog a shower drain with a paperclip.

Asher Arom is a man who is totally open about all topics. My Israeli-born father has a story for every occasion, and nothing is taboo, nothing off limits — least of all his prostate, which is a frequent and cherished topic of conversation.

So, if you’re a man or intend to marry one, he wants you to know about his recent struggles.

Two weeks before I took him to the emergency room, my dad underwent what’s called a transurethral surgery. If you didn’t gather more information than you wanted from that illuminating piece of medical jargon, I won’t go into much more detail, except to tell you how he explains it in conversations with friends and perfect strangers: “I got a Roto-Rooter for my prostate.”

The midnight incident at the hospital, we’re told, is a perfectly normal outcome of the operation, an unpleasantness that doesn’t even rise to the level of a surgery complication. I’m happy to report that my dad now urinates like a man not half his age.

But back at UCLA, the situation looked dicey. Brace yourself for more transurethral fun.

About an hour after he was doubled over in the waiting room, he was lying on a hospital bed while a slight, unimposing urology resident prepared to perform a procedure called “irrigation,” a word I once thought applied only to agriculture but, as I learned, can also be applied with zeal to the human penis.

Multiple times, I was asked if I wouldn’t like to leave the room before “this next part.” Half out of solidarity with my dad, and half out of the understanding that to see is less traumatic than to imagine, I chose to stay.

And so it was that I watched the urology resident pumping fluid with perfect stoicism in and out of my father as if she was filling a tire with air while he writhed in discomfort.

If it feels like I’m being confrontational with my language here, it’s because I am. If my dad’s urology confronted me with an ugly reality — and I sincerely believe I’m the better for it — then it won’t do you too much harm either.

If I’m lucky, this is an unpleasant reality I’ll one day have to deal with, hopefully later than sooner. Watching my dad writhe in pain was a metaphorical ripping off of the Band-Aid — though perhaps ripping out of the catheter is more apt as a metaphor.

My male friends wince when I tell them what happened to my dad. I understand the reaction. Catheter talk once made me wince. It doesn’t anymore.

Leave it to dad to have his prostate turn into a life lesson.

So let this serve as a reminder: We should appreciate our fathers not just for the warm and fuzzy things they do for us, the roofs they put over our heads, the educations they pay for and all the fringe benefits like working light bulbs and a ceiling that doesn’t leak.

Let’s also appreciate the unpleasant stuff, the details that act as a roadmap for how to and how not to live our lives. The crotchety, hard-line politics. The herbal infusions and dietary supplements. The fascination with discount stores. And yes, the grapefruit-size prostates.

Thanks, Pop, as always, for showing me the way.