My Last Five Annual Physicals - Getting My Prostate Examined with my Feet in the Stirrups
My Last Physical- First time in Stirrups
I think I need to begin with that this story is 100% true. I realize that it may be hard to believe, but it really did happen this way.
This past July, I had my usual annual physical. My wife usually schedules both of our annual physical appointments for early in the summer, one day after the other, at the same practice we’ve been using for almost ten years. And over those ten years every provider there has been female.
This past year’s physical was a little “different” because I had turned 50 a few weeks earlier. I ended up having an appointment with the new female PA at the practice. This struck me as unusual, because the doctor at the practice (also female) had performed all my previous physicals. So I initially thought it was a little weird that my appointment was with the new PA. I came to the office that morning with a list of things I would like checked out, to include a screening for testicular and prostate cancer.
During the initial screening and discussion with the PA, I brought up checking for testicular cancer and how I would also like a DRE. She agreed to do both screenings. While we were talking, I had pulled up an article on my phone that I had found a few days earlier that talked about the benefits of male patients having their DRE in the cross-legged lithotomy position. The article stated that urologists felt that they could feel more of the prostate with the patient in that position.
She asked to see the article, so I handed her my phone. She quickly looked over the article and said she had never examined a male patient this way, but would be open to performing the DRE with me in that position. She said that she would first like to perform the DRE the “standard way” with me bent over the exam table so she could “get her bearings.” If I remember correctly, I said something in the way of, “Sounds good.”
I know it’s hard to believe, but this really did happen...in a very organic way. I didn’t feel awkward at all, and walking in to the practice that morning I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to bring it up the DRE.
So the physical started like any normal physical, while I was fully clothed she examined my eyes, ears, nose, throat, chest, lungs, abdomen, etc.
With the standard stuff out of the way, she took out a large absorbent pad and placed it on the table where I would soon be sitting. She handed me a paper modesty sheet, instructed me to undress from the waist down, and then to sit on the table with the sheet covering my lap. With her instructions complete, she stepped out of the room. I quickly took off my shoes, shorts, and boxer briefs, sat on the absorbent pad at the end of the exam table, and covered myself (from the waist down) using the paper sheet. It was unusual to feel the paper table covering on my bare skin. In my 50 years, I’m sure it’s been only a few times I’ve been completely out of my pants and underwear.
A few minutes later she was back. I watched as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves. She approached the end of the table where I was sitting and instructed me to stand up on the exam table’s small, pullout platform in front of her. I placed the modesty sheet on the table behind me, and stood as instructed...hands at my side. She began with a quick testicular cancer screening. Her touch was rather firm as she slowly rolled each testicle between her fingers. I certainly don’t squeeze that hard when I examine myself.
Then came the hernia check, with my hands on my hips, I spread my legs to the edges of the platform. She pressed her finger up into the Inguinal canal and had me turn my head and cough two or three times. I don’t know if I have ever had a doctor or PA press so hard up into me for the hernia check. It was borderline uncomfortable.
Once those two parts of the exam were complete, she walked over the counter and picked up the tube of lubricant. She asked me to bend over the table. Still standing on the pullout platform, I turned around and bent over the table until my chest was resting on it. I felt so exposed and vulnerable. It’s so awkward to be bent over the table at a 90 degree angle, with one’s backside and testicles on display.
I heard her apply the lubricant to her finger. Then she was standing behind me. With one hand she separated my cheeks, placed the lubricated index finger from her other hand at my anus, and said “just relax and bear down for me.” I did as she asked and her finger slid into me for the first DRE. She had quite large hands, so I felt very full as her finger slid all the way into me. I could immediately tell when her finger reached my prostate. She felt my prostate for about ten seconds letting me know that everything felt fine and then withdrew her finger.
I stood back up, and turned to face the PA, while covering my genitals with my hands. She asked me to sit back up on the table. I hopped up onto the exam table, sitting on the absorbent pad, and re-covered myself with the flimsy paper sheet. For the first time in my life, I felt the lubricant between my cheeks stick to the paper. She pulled off her gloves and tossed them into the trash and walked back over to where I was sitting.
I watched as she pulled out the stirrups and they “clanked” (they literally made a metallic clanking sound) into place. As she adjusted the angle of the stirrups outward, she joked that most women have to watch their doctor adjust the stirrups every year at their annual exam, but she had never done this with a male patient. I awkwardly joked that it was definitely a first for me. I was also surprised at how wide an angle she had set the stirrups, and I wondered if the patient in the room next to mine could hear the stirrups being extended.
I truly never thought that this would happen to me, and here I was watching the PA prepare the stirrups for me to put my feet into. It was an entirely new experience for me, surreal almost. Fifteen seconds later, the stirrups were adjusted and in position.
She instructed me to put my heels in the stirrups and lie back, which was another really strange and new sensation for me. Just putting my bare heels onto the cool metal stirrups felt weird. Of course, she had to tell me a couple of times to scoot down more towards the end of the exam table, something I’m sure my wife (and many other women) has heard at her annual Pap Smear appointment. Eventually, I had moved close enough to the end of the table. She then asked me to relax my knees and let them fall outward. I never realized how challenging it is to actually relax in this position.
A moment later, I was on my back with my heels in the stirrups, legs relaxed...”falling” outward. If i had felt exposed and vulnerable earlier during the first DRE, the feeling was tenfold now. She had me cross my left leg over my right knee and then stood in front of me. She pulled on a fresh pair of gloves as I watched, and applied more lubricant to her left index finger. With her right hand, she moved the paper sheet up towards my waist, exposing my penis and scrotum, and moved her left hand towards my rear end.
She sort of stooped down, I guess to “spot” my rectum. With one hand she gently parted my buttocks I felt her finger, cool with the lubricant, at my anus, and again I heard her say, “just relax.” Her finger slid into me for the second time that day, and a moment later her finger reached my prostate again. She stood up after her finger was inside of me, and felt around my prostate for another ten or fifteen seconds. Her comment while she was doing this was that she could actually feel more of my prostate.
For most of the time her finger was inside of me, I stared at the ceiling wondering if this is what my wife did when her feet were in the stirrups during her annual checkup. I also wondered if she had a recto-vaginal exam two days earlier. (We both go to the same practice, and she had actually been examined by the same PA. I wonder if the PA realized we were married?)
The PA withdrew her finger, pulled the paper sheet back across my lap, and had me sit up. She pulled off her gloves, handed me a few tissues to clean myself, told me I could get dressed and then stepped out of the room. I think the only way I would’ve felt it was a better experience if there had been a female nurse assisting or observing as a chaperone.
It has always been a fantasy of mine to be examined that way, but I never thought it would happen. I’m hoping to schedule next year’s physical with her. I wonder if she annotated my chart with how she examined me, and if she will agree to examine me again that way. Fingers crossed.
Just wanted to provide an update. I had my second physical with the PA, and she remembered examining me in the lithotomy position and agreed to do it again this year.
