Teddy
“You must be having such a great time on your winter break,” I say to Ava. “Now we get to talk about all the things young
girls love to discuss on vacation: incontinence and erectile dysfunction.”
Ava doesn’t look up from texting. “Those would actually be less triggering topics for most teenage girls than what we actually
discuss. And they sound like Taylor Swift songs,” she deadpans.
“You mean Cardi B songs?”
She lifts a brow and smiles. “You are learning at the feet of the master. I’m so proud.”
Ava returns to her cell.
This tiny speck of molten lava has not only convinced me to see my doctor again, but she has also sacrificed her dwindling
pool time to accompany an old man to his doctor’s appointment. This young shadow of a woman is my pillar of strength today.
She is the only one who knows what I am facing.
Ava has climbed into a visitor’s chair in the miniscule exam room in my doctor’s office and pretzeled herself into it as if
she’s lounging in a recliner at home. She is all angles, like a geometry textbook. You could turn me into a Barbie doll and
I still couldn’t twist my body parts into the ways she has managed to twist hers.
Her fingers move at the speed of light.
“You should be my surgeon,” I say, “with nimble hands like that.”
“These hands will not be going anywhere near your old ass.”
Ava must have been born into my sister’s life not simply to drive her insane but also to be a constant reminder of yours truly.
She has inherited what I call the H3 gene in our family directly from me.
I tell her this.
“H3?”
“Humor plus heartbreak equals honesty,” I explain.
She finally looks up, tossing her hair over her slim shoulders.
“At least as a woman, I can’t inherit your T3.”
Ava meant this as a joke about my cancer staging, but I can see in her eyes she wants the words back as soon as they leave
her mouth.
“It’s okay,” I say. “You’re just being honest.”
Sitting here in a drafty gown on an examining table, her joke hits, quite literally, a bit too close to home, especially considering
my bare ass is stuck to the flimsy paper.
I wonder how much longer I will have any feeling whatsoever down south if I decide to go through with the surgery, which Ava
has already insisted I should have. I walked her through the options the doctor provided as if she were Marcus Welby and not
a high school girl with a secret penchant to shop at Claire’s Boutique.
Ava actually puts her phone down long enough to look me in the eye.
“Are you scared?”
I nod. “Yes. Really scared.” I gauge how honest to be with her. “It’s just that, for a huge part of my life, my . . . you know . . . little Teddy
has defined my life as a gay man.”
“You know I’m seventeen, right?”
“Going on forty.” I roll my eyes. “Is it okay for me to talk to you like this? The only children I’ve ever really interacted
with are the ones I try to frighten in the grocery store.”
“It is. It’s actually sorta sweet in a creepy way. Our family sweeps everything under the carpet.”
“You still have carpet?” I tsk. “That’s just tragic.”
Ava laughs. “Grandma hasn’t changed it since I was born. Dark brown, baby. Hides all the dirt.”
She’s funny, but I don’t laugh. Ava eyes me closely. “What’s on your mind, old man?”
“It’s just that . . .” my voice hitches “. . . I actually lost my desire to be intimate with anyone after John died. I don’t
even see myself having sex with another man again. But this . . .” I gesture at what lies beneath my gown “. . . is all I
have that defines me not just as a man but a gay man. Why should I bother to go on if the rest of my life is a never-ending
ghost pain?”
“Maybe there is more to life than sex,” Ava suggests. “I mean, I can’t even imagine my grandmother having had sex.”
“That’s a great pep talk.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “You know, most of the time, I just want to talk to Gabe, lie on his chest when we watch TV or listen
to him play his guitar. That’s sexy to me. Maybe you’ll find a man who you enjoy just being with.”
“There are no such gay men in existence.”
“Your friends,” she says. “You’re lucky, you know.” Ava smiles and continues. “There are treatments to help. I read all the
material your doctor gave you, and I’ve been doing some research on my own.”
“I just feel so old, Ava.”
She shakes her head. “I know. And after all you’ve been through, that should be a blessing that makes you want to fight for
your life, right?”
“When will I know if someone really loves me again?”
“You’ll know,” she says. “A reason to fight for the life you have and the love you want will slap you in the face, I guarantee
it.”
A nurse pokes her head into the room.
“The doctor will be in in a just a moment,” she says. She smiles at Ava. “How nice that your granddaughter came to support
you.”
“I’m his child bride,” Ava deadpans.
The nurse’s expression turns from sweet to bewildered.
“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry,” she says, closing the door quickly behind her.
We giggle in silence until the door pops open a moment later.
“Hello, Mr. Copeland,” the doctor says. “It’s very good to see you.”
Doogie Howser shakes my hand. He turns to Ava.
“I’m Dr. Ferguson,” he continues, extending his hand to her. “You must be the child bride I’ve heard so much about?”
Ava’s eyes grow large, and she turns to me in slow-motion horror.
Now he’s funny?
“You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy,” I say.
Dr. Ferguson laughs.
I feel the tension in my body momentarily deflate.
Perhaps I have a team working for me and not against me.
“This is my grandniece, Ava,” I continue. “She’s visiting me for winter break.”
“How nice,” Dr. Ferguson says. “Where are you visiting from?”
“Ohio,” she says with a dramatic sigh. “My father teaches at Ohio State.”
“You mean The Ohio State!” the doctor exclaims. “I went there for undergrad. Go, Buckeyes!”
“You do know how you get accepted into Ohio State?” Ava asks.
The doctor shoots her a confused look.
“You either have to spell OSU or The correctly,” she continues. “That eliminates roughly half the applicants.”
The doctor chuckles.
“Joke I always tell my dad to make him mad.”
“Tough, funny girl,” I say with a wink. “That’s why she’s with me today.”
“Well,” Dr. Ferguson says, “I have to thank you, then, Ava. I’m thrilled Teddy is here today. I wasn’t sure I’d see him again.” The doctor looks at me. “So? Have we come to any decisions?”
I open my mouth, but Ava interjects.
“He’s having a nerve-sparking robotic prostatectomy,” Ava says as if she is guest-starring on Grey’s Anatomy. “There seems to be less reaction to anesthesia, less bleeding from surgery, fewer blood clots, and less damage to surrounding
organs or infections at the surgery site.”
The doctor’s eyes grow bigger with each word. “I’m impressed,” he says. “Are you planning to be a doctor?”
“I play one on TV,” Ava says.
“Well, Teddy,” the doctor says, taking a seat on a stool and opening my chart on the laptop, “you have quite the health advocate.”
“I’m so lucky.”
“Is there someone more age-appropriate, perhaps, though?” the doctor asks. “I’m not sure we can list her as your emergency
contact. How old are you, Ava?”
“Seventeen,” she says.
The doctor gives me a concerned look.
“Dude,” Ava continues. “He, like, trusts me for some reason. And I trust him for some reason. I got him here, okay? And sober
for once! I promise once we get the ball rolling . . .” Ava looks at me. “Sorry for the awful pun.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
“Anyway,” she continues, “once we get the ball rolling, I promise his friends will step up. I think he just needs a bit more
time to process how he’s going to handle telling them, but he needs to get the surgery scheduled ASAP.”
The doctor nods and makes a note in his chart.
“You are now his backup emergency contact, behind Ron,” Dr. Ferguson says. “Give me your contact information.”
Ava does.
She waits until the doctor finishes typing and says, “Thank you. Oh, Teddy told me you went to see his show.”
“I did,” he says. “As I told him, I was quite moved by it. Have you?”
“Not yet,” Ava says. “This weekend. So then you know he has a great set of friends who will do anything and everything to
ensure he has the best postoperative care.”
“I do.”
“My great-uncle is too demure to say this out loud, but he’s very concerned about the future state of his penis. He’s not
sure he’ll ever be able use it again, if you know what I mean, but he’d like to know it’s on standby and ready to go if he
needs it, sort of like a backup generator. Can you assure us that it will work after surgery? Oh, and he is not super excited
about smelling like a porta-potty either. What are the options?”
The doctor shakes his head in amazement. “Are you sure you don’t want to be a doctor?”
“Thanks,” she says. “But I already got my degree from WebMD.”
“Great school,” the doctor deadpans. “And great questions.”
He swivels his stool toward me. “Let me be completely honest about the side effects, Teddy. Urinary incontinence and erectile
dysfunction are common after surgery. Roughly eight in ten men experience these symptoms.”
“Great odds,” I say. “They should have this game at the casino. Call it Winkle or Tinkle. You win, and you still lose!”
“Teddy,” Dr. Ferguson says, his voice low and serious, “I am a great surgeon. I perform many prostatectomies, and my patients report lower rates of erection problems than the average. Moreover, bladder control usually improves slowly after a few weeks or months. Older men do have more issues, but again, my patients report lower rates of occurrence. Does that mean I can guarantee there won’t be any?
No. Erections are controlled by two tiny bundles of nerves that run either side of the prostate.
You’ve told me you were able to have erections before surgery, so—as Ava mentioned—I will try a nerve-sparing approach, but if the cancer is growing close to the nerves, I will need to remove them. ”