Urology - An Interesting Professional Choice

When Doug visited the oncologist in early February, she strongly suggested that he see a urologist due to his family history of prostate cancer.  Our family doctor had only performed PSA tests the last few years and although the numbers looked good, Dr. Denham didn't want to take any risks.  I realized that Doug wasn't be excited about going, but I had been worried about relying only on a family doctor's knowledge.  Thus, I was happy that Dr. Denham made the recommendation.

Today was Doug's scheduled visit and he asked me to go with him, so that someone else would be hearing the information about his risk of prostate cancer.  I was more than willing to go with him, but felt a little weird about it at first.  That subsided when we got there as I realized urologists are for women too and I had seen one after I had Brett.  

In the end I was very glad that I went as the visit was extremely informative.  We found out that Doug's risk of getting prostate cancer was still relatively low compared to the average male.  The type of cancer that he would most likely be diagnosed with, however, was more aggressive and wouldn't always show up in a PSA test.  That meant the dreaded internal exam, but at least we would know right away if there was a problem.  I was happy to hear that as we had learned from Phil that not only had Jeanette's Dad and brother had prostate cancer, but so had Carl, his brother, four of his uncles and his grandfather.  I had become a little more nervous about it since hearing that news.

Thankfully, I was able to leave the room before the exam.  I didn't have to wait too long before I heard Doug making an appointment for a year from now.  That was a relief as I knew that the test was normal. I called Meg on the way home as she had also been concerned.  She was glad to hear that all was well, but did have two questions.  The first one she wanted to know was "Who goes to med school and decides, hey, I think I'll be a urologist?  Why wouldn't they chose something fun, like pediatrics, or less invasive, like radiologist?"  I couldn't answer that one for her, but did have an answer to the next question that she asked, "So, after Dad's exam today, did he still think that having a q-tip shoved up his nose for a Covid test was the worst thing that could happen?"  I asked Doug for her and he said that after today he would prefer neither test.  Either way, I am glad that our urology appointment ended on a positive note.