Alan Alda once divulged in an interview that people often approach him for medical advice. It’s understandable after so many years speaking medical terms on “M*A*S*H” that he would be mistaken for a physician. But me? Oh, I’ve preg-checked a cow or two, but that’s got nothing to do with martial arts. So when Jerry from Rock Island, Illinois asked for advice about his prostate, I went back through several past articles to see whether I had ever delivered a medical opinion, much less advice. My own physician, Alan Stag, M.D., doesn’t even have much to say on the subject. “Well, Fred, you don’t have cancer,” he says, tossing the rubber glove in the bio-hazard bin. “It’s just really big.”

Big? Wow! But Alan Stag, M.D. explains, “At its best, your prostate was about the diameter of a Susan B. Anthony dollar. Now, it’s bigger than a JFK half dollar.” “So that’s why I use an entire commercial break to pee?” “Yep.” He gave me Flomax, but it doesn’t help much. Both my neighbor and my sparring partner say that Cialis helps them more than Flomax, but it didn’t help me. You can try saw palmetto. I’d recommend trying everything everybody recommends because something might help relieve the trouble.

So, Jerry, from Rock Island, Illinois, that’s all I got. Oh, and I can tell you that it won’t affect your martial arts. Just make sure you take plenty of time to pee before a sparring match or something. When the trouble started about ten years ago, I didn’t wait long enough for the second wave and got a nice yellow stain down the front of my lily white pants. It was a small tournament. I had only one match. Won it, too. But, ever since, I make sure to fight in black pants.

Seriously, though, get checked. The test for cancer is a prostate-specific antigen detected in your blood. And even that isn’t a slam dunk. Just let your doctor check it regularly. It ain’t easy. I got lucky my first time. I had spent five years declining to have Alan Stag, M.D. do the horrible deed. Then, when I was fifty, he had a resident do my physical and he left us alone. When the big moment came, I said, “I never let him do that.” She said, “Will you let me?” I sighed. She had big hooters, so I said, “Yes.”

By the way, preg-checking a cow is more than a simple matter of getting her to pee on a stick. You start at the front end and tell her, face-to-face, how sorry you are. Of course, she knows what’s going on because you are wearing a single plastic glove that reaches your shoulder. She rumbles something deep in her throat about getting on with it. Pretty much the same thing I say to Alan Stag, M.D.

To put it discreetly, you introduce (yes, that’s the technical term) your fingers, hand, then arm into the rectum and feel through the rectal wall for the embryo in the uterus. If you feel something about the size of a squirrel or a cat she will have about seven months of peace and quiet before she gets on the twice-daily milking treadmill. If you feel nothing, she goes back in with the bull.