My new 20 year old patient, Reed Jeffries, lettered in three sports while he was in high school (baseball, football, basketball) and while he equally enjoyed all three, he was probably best known in his school for his involvement with football.
This fiery red head is quick to smile and speaks easily about his involvement in sports and how it became an integral part of his high school years. Reed was sidelined for a short period of time as he suffered a broken ankle and although he did miss part of the basketball season, he also missed the full track season, which was not such a bad thing. Some athletes viewed the “mandatory” participation in track as punishment duty and it was clearly that way for Reed.
Reed prefers to “free ball” which was painfully obvious as he prepared for his physical today. When asked to get undressed, he shucked down his jeans to display a naked and smooth genital area. No fiery red crotch on this athlete unfortunately.
As I used the stethoscope, I noticed that my young athlete’s breathing had become a bit more labored. Glancing down lower, I also became aware that he had also sprung up a full erection. We had just completed a series of questions about his past sexual history and most likely those answers stirred up some earlier, vivid memories.
I took Reed’s temperature using a rectal thermometer. Some previous patients have reacted in much the same way as Reed. Insertion of a thermometer through a sphincter clenched in fear becomes a major ordeal. So in the interest of moving forward, I omitted a prostate exam in favor of taking a full urine specimen and a urethral culture from my patient. The urethral culture did cause him quite a bit of anguish but far less discomfort then a prostate examination would have caused.
Reed concluded today’s examination with an extremely large semen specimen.
JP