One man’s view of life one year after prostate cancer treatment-Jim Tucker and prostablog

New Zealand is a favorite post-urologic residency destination. They have a very good urologic medical community and I have two  friends that did a fellowship there. That Mr. Tucker speaks of being sexually active  after a prostatectomy bespeaks of the folks over there performing a prostatectomy the right way ( I also noted the length of his incision on his last blog and the size of it tells me something about of his surgeon’s acumen). One of my friends that did a year over there, and by the way both told me they were treated very well by the community there and that their experience enhanced their understanding urology. The way one of my friends told it, and he was there circa 1986, they had a dinner in his honor to celebrate his time there and as appreciative send-off. At the conclusion of the ceremonies they asked him to speak and he took the opportunity to tell a joke. Now, I love jokes and have quite the repertoire myself and in a situation like this half way around the world and the likelihood that he’d never be back, one would not take the choice of “the joke ” lightly. It would have to be one that was not only thought out, but one taking into consideration the audience and one that he knew would have a positive response. A “ringer of  a joke” so to speak. This is the joke he told me he told to all the urologists in New Zealand, possibly one in the audience performed Mr.Tucker’s surgery, a budding urologist at the time so to speak. Hey, you never know. Ps… if you are a urologist in New Zealand and were in training or practice when a urologist from Georgia with the initials D.D. was visiting please let me know. Anyway without further a Dieu (apologize for spelling, I have never seen this word spelled.)

Death by A chee chee.

Three men were in a plane crash over a far-away land and captured by the natives. They were each given two options; to be boiled in the fat of dead animals and then for their skin to be used for the covering of the native’s canoes, or death by a chee chee. The first man chose “death by a chee chee.” At the announcement by the tribal leader, the natives went into a frenzy and encircled the unfortunate survivor. They then stripped him and then tortured him both to the horror of the man himself as well as the two other men watching. The next man considering his options decided that the lesser of two evils was death by a chee chee as well. The thought of frying in a vat of boiling fat far out-weighed what he had just witnessed albeit each was detestable. So again the tribal leader declares, ” He has chosen death by a chee chee!” Again, the natives go wild and the second man is encircled , striped of his clothes and tortured. When this ended, the third man was asked his decision. (Tough decisions,… a plug for the book and the prostate decision process was purely accidental.) Having witnessed the two previous men and what had been done to them, not only was he now very angry at what he had observed, he could not bring himself to ” death by a chee chee.”  The tribal leader then asks him how he would want his fate to proceed. “I want to be boiled in fat,” he says indignantly. The tribal leader states loudly, ” He no want death by a chee chee.” All of the natives are dejected and surround the last man with shoulders slumped, as the fire is stoked and the flames begin to boil the fat in a very large “human size” pot looming over the condemned man. The last man says to the tribal leader, “My I have a last wish?” Somewhat surprised but relenting the leader says, “Yes, you may.” The last of the three men says, ” I want two forks.” “Forks,” the tribal leader asks somewhat confused? ” Yes , a fork,” the man ascertains. ” Get  forks.” A member of the tribe runs off and returns with a fork, which he gives the remaining man. The whole tribe is now crowding around him smelling blood and the anticipation of his eminent death and the subsequent procurement of his skin. The last survivor takes the forks and begins to violently and repeatedly  stabbing himself all over his body as deeply and quickly as he could as the natives begin to clutch at him to stop and to get him to the pot of boiling fat.

The man then yelled, “To hell with all of you and to hell with your damned canoes!”

I am not saying it was the best of jokes, I am not saying I would have chosen it,  just that it was one he decided to tell in New Zealand when he could have told any number of jokes. He was an excellent joke teller.     I guess you had to be there.

The prostatblog by Jim Tucker