Mr. Smiff has this knot in the palm of his hand. It’s pretty tender to the touch. It turned up after he used the axe to chop some crap down in our yard on Good Friday. It’s kinda bluish underneath the skin and also on the same hand he frets the bass with. I told him it looked sorta like the blood clot an old co-worker had in her hand one time so I called the doctor and sent him on to have it looked at this morning. Ewwww…I hope it’s not a blood clot cause they’re liable to do that little procedure where they suck it out. I don’t know how Mr. Smiff would handle such a procedure. Mr. Smiff doesn’t do sickly well. A cold pretty much renders him bedridden.

He did survive his vasectomy pretty well though, which I was quite surprised. This was right after #2 Son was born in 1998. I had originally planned to have my tubes tied, but, due to an unexpected traumatic birth (I’ll tell that story come July on #2’s birthday…stay tuned), Mr. Smiff announced that I would not go through surgery following delivery of a nearly 10 lb baby with no medication. (Good story…trust me, it’s worth the wait)

When #2 was a few weeks old, I went ahead and called the urologist and made the appointment for Mr. Smiff’s big day. When I told him the appointment was made, he didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day. V Day was not something he was looking forward to.

V Day came and the urologist in charge’s name was Dr. Little. I am not kidding. Mr. Smiff loved that. As he recollected later, Dr. Little was pretty chatty throughout the procedure, even shared that one of the doctor’s in their rather large urology group performed his own vasectomy. I am of the mind that all urologists tell a similar story to their patients to calm them down because I’ve heard somebody else tell that.

Me and then baby #2 Son sat in the waiting room waiting for Daddy Smiff to emerge as the new man he would be. He came out, walking rather slowly and his hair was mussed and I have to admit, I felt a little bad for the guy. I didn’t feel so bad that I wished I’d have gone ahead with the tubal ligation in his stead though. I think my body had sacrificed enough birthin’ three babies and the pregnancies leading up to them.

I think even Mr. Smiff would tell any prospective vasect-tee that it was not all that bad. He was a little sore that first day (frozen peas are a great invention) but after that, he was doing his regular routine. I think he found the “follow up visits” to the urologist with his “gift” to them, a little tedious but almost 8 years later, I think he’s grateful for those visits when he hears a crying baby.

***Update****
No bloodclot for Mr. Smiff…apparently, it’s some sort of cyst. The doc told him to get cornpads to put on it. The thought of Mr. Smiff going to get corn pads and walking around with them on his hand is more humorous than I can express.