Fill 'er Up!

I suffer from performance anxiety. The same could be said, too, of a certain number of the athletes who have competed these past two weeks at the Winter Olympics. They are the ones who just cannot seem to muster whatever it is that is necessary to put together their finest performance at the very moment they need it most. These are the athletes who do well in the many smaller competitions that take place prior to the Olympics then fizzle out, so-to-say, when the big crowds show up, the cameras focuses in, and the most important medal they could ever win is suddenly on the line.

Certainly, it's the pressure that does it. Knowing what needs to be done but being intimidated by it. Knowing the expectations of others and of yourself. Knowing that there are people out there who will love you no matter what the outcome but who, at the same time, want to see you succeed.

Yes, I know what it is to suffer from performance anxiety. But mine is not to be found at the top of a ski run or the start of a short track race. There are no snowboards or ice skates involved. Not even a winner or a loser.

No, my performance anxiety sets in each time I have to visit the doctor and fill that little cup.

It seems everyone else I know, as well as everyone in the history of time who has ever taken a physical, can urinate on command. Given that so many people can do this I guess it's not really that extraordinary of an accomplishment. Yet, present me with a tiny plastic cup and direct toward the nearest restroom and suddenly I'm more nervous than Mike Tyson at a spelling bee. Beads of sweat begin to build on my brow as my body moves full steam ahead to produce plenty of fluid - just not the one I actually need at the moment.

I first encountered this when I went in for my ten-year-old physical. Our family physician, Dr. West, was an extremely old man who was hard of hearing and had wiry gray hairs sticking out from his head, ears, and nose. He wore thick black glasses and, despite the fact that he always had a waiting room full of people whose appointment times had come and gone more than an hour ago, never seemed in a hurry to get anywhere or do anything.

I wasn't that fond of Dr. West because, frankly, he kind of scared me. He didn't look to be in all that great of health himself. Still, he must have been remarkable because my parents were willing to drive forty-five minutes, past dozens of closer doctor offices, to sit and wait an hour-and-a-half or two hours just to be graced by four or five minutes of his time.

This particular visit was no different. We sat in the tiny office as I looked around at all the grown ups wondering what was wrong with them - other than being really old. Because he was so old and had a loyal clientele, you would be hard pressed to find many of his patients who were under sixty years old. Certainly, I must have been the only kid to ever climb up the stool and sit on the bed covered in crunchy white paper.

Bored of the people and magazines, I began to get restless. And then it hit me.

"Mom, I gotta pee," I said.

"What? Can't you hold it?" she asked. "We should be going in anytime."

"No," I contested. "I really gotta go!"

She looked at her watch then up at the door where the nurses magically appeared ever twenty minutes or so to call out the name of some lucky soul who would be escorted back to an even tinier room to wait.

"Alright," she said. "Go on out to the bathroom in the hall. Do you know where it is?"

"At the top of the stairs by the drinking fountain?"

"Yeah," she said. "But be quick because they'll be calling you back any time now."

This I doubted but I was grateful to get out of that waiting room. I ran down the hall, took a big drink from the fountain, and made my way into the bathroom. I don't know that I really did have to go all that bad but I was happy for a change of scenery and an opportunity to move.

No sooner than I walked back into the waiting room, a nurse, who by any other standards than Dr. West could have been described as really old herself, peeked her head out, looked down at the manila file in her hand and called out "Christopher."
My mom looked over at me, nodded toward the nurse, and began to get up out of her chair.

"No mom," I said. "I can go back myself."

I had never before dared to see the doctor alone but, at age ten, I knew there would be a time in that back room where he would ask me to drop my pants so that he could touch me in a way that, were it a man from any other profession, would require the attention of the proper authorities. This was an indignity I preferred to suffer alone.

"Are you sure," she asked.

"Yeah," I answered and I made my way back with Nurse Ratched.

She showed me back to my room, took my temperature and blood pressure, then held out a little clear plastic cup.

"Take this into the bathroom and fill it to the line," she said. "When you finish, you can leave it on the counter of the sink and then come back to this same room."

A sudden uneasiness began to build inside me. I had just gone no more than ten minutes ago!

I stepped into the bathroom, locked the door (a crucial step I would forget many years later), and started my very best to fill that cup. I stood. I sat. I turned on some water. I thought about any and everything involved a solid flow of water. I tried thinking about nothing at all. However, the more effort I put into it the further I seemed to get from the possibility of having any success.

Finally, I gave up and went to find the good nurse.

"I couldn't do it," I told her.

"What do you mean you couldn't do it?" she asked with a stern look of disapproval.

"I, uh...." I was confused by her question. It seemed pretty cut-and-dry to me. "I couldn't do it. I couldn't... you know...."

She studied my face and then the cup. By the look of her you would have thought this was the very first time in her looooong career that this had ever happened.

"Are you certain?" she asked.

"Uh huh," I answered.

She left me standing there in the hallway as she turned to find the doctor. Her back was to me as she talked and although I couldn't hear a word she said I got the gist of it by the look on Dr. West's face as he leaned around her to take a look at me. It must have been a look they practiced at medical and nursing school because when she turned to look at me as well they were a couple of old wrinkled peas in a pod.

Dr. West came ambling toward me with the cup in hand.

"What seems to be the problem?" he asked.

"I can't go," I answered.

"Why not?"

"I just went a few minutes ago in the hall," I explained. "I just can't go anymore."

"Hmmmm," he responded. looking down at the empty cup as though it were a crystal ball containing some magical solution for what, seemingly, was the biggest problem this office had encountered all day.

He turned and made his way back down the hall.

"Come with me," he said.

I followed him to the door leading back out into the waiting room. He opened the door and every set of hopeful eyes in that room turned instantly toward him.

"HE WON'T GO," he called out across the room to my mom in a voice I never in my wildest days would have thought he could muster.

"What?" my mom asked.

"URINATE," he answered. "HE WON'T PEE IN THE CUP."

Slowly, every eye shifted from the doctor to my mother and then to me. I tried to smile but I wasn't seeing a lot of empathetic looks in the waiting room. Here were a dozen or so people dying to get back to see the doctor and obviously I was standing in their way with my refusal to pee in the cup.

I looked down at my feet and wished it would all go away.

And that was the very moment that would forever change my life. Well, maybe not my entire life but it sure plays havok on me when handed an empty cup. I now find myself saving up for hours.

"HA," I boast. "You only need one cup? Heck, I could give you four or five if you wanted."

The looks I get now are different. No longer are they full of disdain.

Just disbelief.