I can't stand single case studies, which will dominate the feedback I generally get for these types of posts.
What is a single case study? Example:
Statement: Smoking causes lung cancer, mouth cancer, throat cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and bad breath.
Case study reply: "My grandfather smoked; he lived to be 96!"
Great. Let's all smoke, then.
Let's do away with single case studies and have a frank discussion about vasectomies.
The first post I wrote was the day or two after my own procedure.
My experience was typical. I was very nervous; there was a fair amount of pain - I'd evaluate it as 7 on a scale of 10. The surgery took about fifteen or twenty minutes, and I couldn't wait for it to be over.
But, eventually, it ended, and with it ended my decades of fertility.
I drove myself home. There was a sheet of sterile gauze surrounded and supported by my jeans, my thighs, my underwear (wear briefs, not boxers!), and, of course, my testicles (yes, I still have them).
Photo: GQ Germany / Art Direction: Jana Meier via PleaseEnjoy.com
For the afternoon following my snip, I arranged for the children to be away, and my brother and my close friend to keep me company. They were fantastic; they barbecued, brought along with them several DVD's and snack to accompany the movie collection.
They paused the movie whenever I limped upstairs to go to the bathroom or change the gauze.
Although my brother dared not, my buddy was even brave enough to peek at my stitches - two small spots of black suture on a slightly swollen scrotum.
Whenever I deemed the gauze needed replacing, I did so on my own. Once you understand the fantastic convenience of a sterile maxi-pad adhered to your briefs (don't wear boxers!!), feeling refreshed is a snap.
I sat on the sofa with an icepack between my legs, watch sci-fi and ate burgers and potato chips with my friend and family member - it was almost the perfect day, save a slight throbbing from the place where fertility used to live.
The pain was acute for a day or two, then annoying for another four. Within a week-and-a-half it was gone altogether.
A month or two after the procedure, you're booked for a follow-up test to be sure there are no more active sperm in your ejaculate (get over it, that's what it's called). From that point on - for the rest of your life - you are ensured of non-procreative sex.
Done.
Compare that to the unreliable, awkward condom (although it is necessary to mention that a condom is still the best protection - save for abstinence - against sexually transmitted diseases and infection).
Or to the birth control pill which brings with is it's own set of side effects (and its own - although slight - level of unreliability).
Or the intrusiveness and risks of an Intrauterine Device .
Or the physical and mental stress and complications of dealing with an unexpected pregnancy.
Yes, a vasectomy is unpleasant and scary, and carries with it a certain amount of discomfort. But - with the exception of the single case studies you're about the send me - it is relatively risk free, quick, only temporarily painful, and reliable when coupled with the follow-up exam.
It is a far better option than asking your partner to commit to a decades-long diet of pills, or to house a foreign body in their uterus.
Are you prone to passing out? I am, too. I've passed out four times while trying to give blood, once more when I went to visit my Mom at work - she was a nurse in the preemie baby unit, and again while watching a psychic surgery video in college. For Pete's sake it wasn't even real surgery!
I did NOT pass out during my vasectomy.
Even if I had, I was lying down, in a doctor's office. Where better to lose consciousness?
Do it! Get rid of the kids for the day. Call you buddies, order some movies and some pizza, and say good-bye to fertility, condoms, birth control pills, and, most importantly, the risk of having to start aaaallllllover with sleepless nights and diaper changes.
Do it.
All you REALLY need to undergo a vasectomy, is balls.
Photo: Goodnight Babies by Dave Herholz
