Photo: Roberto Caruso
Lying flat on my back on the operating table in a Toronto hospital, I turned my head to survey the tray of gleaming surgical tools and tried not to think of grapefruits. Or oranges. Walnuts seemed pretty upsetting, too. Really, I didn?t want to consider anything that might resemble the kind of swelling I could expect after those sharp implements met my man parts, so vulnerable down there under my thin blue paper gown.
With a head full of locker-room horror stories and gory Google images that could not be unseen, I wasn?t exactly looking forward to my vasectomy. But what dude would be" Sure, I was confident about my decision?my wife and I had completed our family with a beautiful daughter three years ago. We were done. The fact that my partner experiences adverse reactions to many contraceptive methods only reinforced my belief that this was my move to make. Nevertheless, my anxiety level still soared when the first tool made contact down below?in this case, it was a razor, handled by an unflappable nurse charged with finessing my lacklustre pre-op grooming. I was so keyed up I was slow to notice the music coming from the speakers at the far side of the room. As the fading thunder of a guitar riff was followed by the radio DJ?s New Jersey accent, I realized, with more than a little surprise, that I was listening to Little Steven?s Underground Garage, the hard-rock radio show hosted by Bruce Springsteen?s long-time sideman and pompadour-wearing form...