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He has a huddle with himself:
"Maybe they're gone. Maybe they got disconnected and were swept out in an unprecedented Yuletide tsunami of urine. Maybe they were flushed down the toilet as I braced myself to deliver a three-in-morning attempt at voiding."
"Maybe the operation - ‘the procedure' - is unnecessary. Maybe, somehow, some way, the polyps, the nodules, the neoplasms, the growths, the masses squatting against some suburban development in my bladder wall have up and went. Maybe they just got tired of hanging on in that urine-soaked neighborhood."
Uninvited, against all his personal zoning restrictions and "red-lining" strictures and discriminatory bans, a polyp, nodule, neoplasm (a mass by any other name would still be foul) had taken up residence in his bladder; in his bladder, of all places. But maybe, just maybe, they have been evicted by that unprecedented tsunami of urine or become less attached to that urine-soaked neighborhood.
Wishful thinking, yes, but he wonders if there's some mind-over- matter thing that might have worked, or be at work - some faith-based expulsion that might confound biomedical evidence and conventional physiological thinking, but which might somehow be rationalized theologically.
Studies strongly suggest that tobacco use is the likely cause of 80 percent of bladder cancers - even secondhand smoke is a culprit.
But he's never smoked - not even pot. Puts him in the Tim Tebow camp, doesn't it? Never associated with people who smoked; avoided smoke-filled rooms like the plague.
He rarely drinks alcoholic beverages; almost never. No strip clubs. No carousing. Clean living. Puts him on the Tebow team, doesn't it?
He has become increasingly embarrassed by the number of times - morning, noon, and night - that he cries out for God. He knows he is far from the neediest; his sufferings are relatively modest, and will likely be redressed in relatively short order, with relatively little pain and suffering. Yet, the urinary and bowel difficulties have him cry out.
The radiologist's report that interpreted the CAT scan had him murmuring "Oh my God."
Just thinking about the obligatory cystoscopy - an insertion into a man's most vulnerable terrain - had him uttering, "Oh God."
The initial cystoscopy had him expelling the phrase between labored breaths - along with the less-than-heart-felt apologies to the urologist who was peering into the eyeball end of the cystoscope.
The aftermath of that cystoscopy had him pressed onto the seat of the toilet, banging his fists against his thighs as he tried to brace himself for the terrible burning sensation - what felt like lava hot urine that he had to expel; what felt like razor-blade-like hot coals that had to pass through his irritated urethra. He stood up in the hope that gravity might facilitate the flow. He cried out for the Lord's help. Not exactly a seconds-to-go Tebow triumph in the end-zone.
But when he was able to endure the elimination, he did thank God, and did feel embarrassed at having to call out the name so often, so needily.
The scheduled operation - the Trans-Urethral Resection of a Bladder Tumor - had him thinking. Maybe, just maybe it wasn't necessary. Not absolutely necessary, anyway. Not right away, anyway.
A second, third, and fourth opinion confirmed the initial recommendation: "Get it over with. Put it behind you."
His response, never actually voiced, was, "Put it behind me. It's right there in front of me."
More soberly - ominously but not unsympathetically - he was advised:
"The longer you wait, the bigger it may get, and the more we have to remove - the more of the bladder wall as well. We don't want that."
Tis the season to be jolly. Jolly may be too much to aspire to. He's not looking for a swell time to rock the night away. But he has become convinced that what might well follow the surgery - especially with the supremely-credentialed and justifiably-renowned surgeon who has agreed to do the procedure - could be some modicum of comfort, and maybe even some joy.
Maybe the resection - the eviction of the polyps - will restore him to the olden days, happy golden days of yore. And maybe even better days.
And maybe, just maybe, with a dash of frankincense and myrrh in one of his antioxidant concoctions, he'll be able to engineer a Tebow-like comeback - score some peace on his modest footprint of earth; share some goodwill; have nothing to dismay, and thus raise a truly joyful noise.
Then, without any hint of sacrilege or irreverence, lyrics from a Carly Simon song come to him. In the Magnavox turntable in his auditory canal plugged into the temporal lobe of his brain, he hears -
"We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway..."
He hears the songstress admit -
"I'm no prophet, I don't know nature's way..."
And then the line that shakes his resolve to go through with the resection:
"cause these are the good old days."
No can't be.
Does God make deals?
Can't think in such terms. Too crass, for sure. But he is an accountant by training - and for decades he inspected balance sheets; looking for balance; searching for reconciliation that could actually be documented, honestly. So he ran afoul of the partners who looked away, signed off, and looked further away.
In recent weeks, he has wondered about his ledger with God - his thoughts have taken such turns. For relief, between crying out "Oh God, help me, please help me!" he wonders if there is a double-entry set of books in which there is a log of how he's been bad and how he's been good. He counts the ways he's been good, nice. Naughty hasn't been his thing. But has he actually been good for goodness sake?
He is embarrassed, ashamed, at how often he has implored and beseeched God for relief. But there may have been something magic in that incantation - something relieving in the utterance itself. Something in the cadence, in the repetition, that spelled him.
Was he being tested? Is there some kind of salvation through suffering - even suffering that is sure to be relieved by medical marvels?
He tells himself that God doesn't need an answering service or an answering machine. The line is open 24-7, but some calls just aren't returned right away. Caller ID? Call Waiting? No, God got the message. God is letting him work through it. No special pain bailout package. No credit-default insurance.
It may be that the hopes and fears of all the years are all part of the accounting; that he has to endure some pain before he again enjoys silent nights.
It may be that he is expected to be put his own troubles out of sight; to face unafraid, the plans that he had made.
It may be that he is expected to be faithful, joyful, and triumphant - on his own account.
