Intimate moments

They know when I'm full of shit. They know when I have to urinate. They even know when I wouldn't mind farting. And then they see my crotch.

They are the technicians administering the daily radiation to my prostate gland, a process which should kill it and the cancer in it. Before they do it, I lie on a mold made of my pelvic area and they line up the three tiny tattoos I had for this with laser beams. Then they go in and do a low-dose MRI to target the prostate gland accurately. That's when they see all the inside stuff. 
It's a little weird, but they are professional about it and when they do much of this they're behind glass and the jokes they make about me, if any, go unheard by me.

A camera up there

Yesterday, the Complete and Total Loser spent over half an hour with a camera up a part of his body he regards as an exit-only portal that required cleansing steps prior to the camera's insertion. It wasn't a camera as most would understand it, with a lens. It was more like a probe and the procedure in some ways resembled ones you'd hear alien abduction victims (i.e., crazy people) talk about having used on them in the 1990s, when that was a thing. 
The idea was to get an MRI of the Loser's cancerous prostate to check the progress of said cancer to determine how urgent its removal may be. That's not a step most bother with, but the Loser has other health issues going on and will refrain getting his gland yanked if those other issues arise as they will kill him within a year, making removal of the prostate unnecessary. 

Technicians stand by an MRI machine, waiting to abuse the Loser.

Needles, injections of contrast fluids, a noisy machine, a narrow bed that would jerk back and forth an inch or so to get good images. No fun and in a few days he'll be undergoing something as bad at the same place for his lungs and decrepit leg that will take several times longer. 
Meanwhile, as he writes this, Southern California is burning and snow is falling in the Loser's southeastern Pennsylvania town even though it's twelve days before the start of winter. It is very pretty and calming to see, and the Loser may spike his eggnog later, sit by a window and enjoy the view.

Sticks and pain

The first ten minutes or so in an MRI aren't bad. You can't hear the music or whatever you've asked them to pipe through your headphones because the machine is a noisy one. But no matter: MRIs are often done quickly these days, and the Complete and Total Loser heard others being theirs would take about ten minutes.
The Loser's took longer. Much longer. He was in for an hour and fifteen minutes because of the five pounds of titanium he has instead of artificial the knee joint most would get. 
And there's more! After an hour, he needed to be injected with a dye to show contrast. The Loser used to have nice veins and he'd get that little unearned thrill people get from being told something about them is good (hair, eyes, hands) when nurses told him what an easy stick he was. Not anymore. The numerous operations and tests he's had so far in 2017 have led to scarring and the nurse had to abandon his left arm for his right to inject the dye needed for the last fifteen minutes of his MRI.
You know what? All the pads and cushions in the world won't make keeping your lower half completely still for an hour and fifteen minutes comfortable. 
The Loser needed the MRI so his doctor could see if the bone sarcoma had come back and needed to be tended to. Meanwhile, the Loser needs to visit this doctor anyway because bone has grown around the hinge now serving as his knee, limiting its range of motion, so the doctor will need to knock him out and force it to bend, grinding away the bone growth as he does. This isn't really an operation but a manual manipulation. Still, the Loser knows it'll hurt like hell when he comes to.
After the MRI came a lung cat scan to see if the Loser's bone sarcoma has spread to his lungs. There's a one-in-three chance of it doing so and if it does there's no treatment for it—the Loser would be dead within a year. That needed a different dye for contrast and required another stick. This one in a large vein in the Loser's right hand. 
The second test required that he not eat, so the Loser skipped breakfast. Not a big deal, he'd thought, as he'd be in at 8:30 and home by 10:00. He didn't get back until after noon and, though he'd promised himself to have something wholesome and nutritious, bought discounted cherry turnovers and chocolate chip cookies at a supermarket on his way home and ate too many of both.

The bathroom sink in which a spider died.

Tomorrow, maybe the day after, the Loser will learn if he'll be dead in a year or not. It would make sense to enjoy this day of not knowing with a light heart and happy mind, but the Loser is finding that impossible.
He sees misery everywhere these days, the Loser. A few days ago while cleaning the sink in the picture, a sink that he never uses because the bathroom has two, he found a dead spider in it. It had fallen into the sink and died, probably after several days. It would have tried to climb out, never giving up, always sliding back just as it neared the rim. While the Loser knows that its tiny arachnid brain is incapable of higher thoughts like regret, he can't help thinking the spider thought some version of oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.