Death by Vagina

Today was one of the most surreal days I've ever had in my life. I had to tell a guy we were going to cut off his penis. It was funny, but not really.

It started out about 3 weeks ago in clinic. A guy came in with a penile infection that had been raging for the past 6 months. Most people would've gone to have this checked out earlier. It was beefy red, swollen and just oozing pus out of his urethra and a couple of other pus pockets. The whole time, he was eating peanut M&M's. One of the residents actually took a few steps back and leaned against the wall when he took a look at it. Yea, it was that bad. Anyhow, we ended up giving him antibiotics and sending him home. About a week ago, the guy came back to clinic with pus oozing out of his penis again. We drained his corpora cavernosa, only to find it pus filled. We sent the cells in for cytology and this afternoon, the reading came back as squamous cell cancer of the penis.

Fast forward to later in the day. One of the 4th years and I went to go tell this guy that he had penile cancer. The guy fumbled around with peanut M&M's wrapper for a while. The shits and dammits were later followed by the quote of the day, "I never thought my dick would do me in." We just had to laugh at that. I mean, come on...anyhow, we're gonna cut off his penis. He had palpable inguinal lymph nodes...might be infection...might be cancer. Got chills writing the order to check his serum calcium levels.

Here's the kicker. It turns out, the guy's wife's former husband passed away from penile metastatic cancer after the docs had cut off his dick. What are the odds of that. Penile cancer is even more rare than breast cancer in men. Anyhow, our guy is having his penis cut off next week. Let that be a warning to all you straight men and lesbians out there. The vagina can kill you, literally and figuratively.

-bender is out like greg oden