What blew me a lot is the way some doctors talk to the patient. They talk to us about pain as if we were children. As I have had two kidney transplants, I know what I mean: among other things, I have had a tube inside my penis. Because of the anesthesia, I didn't feel how I got into it, but when I got out, I was afraid, I had to adjust. Apparently, when I had surgery, I was put in a small tube inside my penis to prevent leakage of urine and, inevitably, I was going to be removed.

I asked the young urologist if it hurt. “No pain, no discomfort,” replied the urologist, who took a pen out of the pocket of the white coat to reinforce his own words, because at that time he had no need to write anything.

Experience has taught me that the word nuisance is a euphemism used by doctors, a false escape route that easily leaves the mouth of doctors to avoid the word pain. Because pain is only personal and, therefore, if that urologist has never felt what it is to put the tube in and out of his penis, he should not say anything, because he doesn’t know what it feels and how far is unbearable pain, acute pain, unbearable pain or an inconvenience, but a small obstacle – an inconvenience.

Since I am tenacious – or, if you prefer, insistent, stubborn – I asked him a second question with the intention of predicting the damage that was going to cause me, to prepare myself better, or: “From 1 to 10, what pain?” The urologist answered “five”, too thoughtful, raising the pen he holds in his hand, to reinforce his word. Lamy has a pen, a naive German. Maybe I can give you another more elegant Lamy.

And the time comes when the urologist holds an instrument in his hand like a needle, no, it's not a pen. He has explained to me that I have a balloon in the inside of the tube so that the tube doesn't come out on its own, and that I'm going to get anesthesia, putting in another small tube and emptying the balloon the tube will come out. He said it very easily. The result of the pain, “bosta”, has seemed to me a very low note for the pain I have suffered; we are born to see eleven, not five. It is true that it has not been very long, but the suffering that has caused me is not something I wish anyone.

I'm not going to give a pen to the urologist.

Next Monday, the appointment will be at the Arriaga Theatre in Bilbao.

Josu Jimenez Maia, writer