This is copied from a post that I placed on The Healing Well Prostate Forum. A great place for anyone who has or had prostatic cancer.
One of the things about having a RALP in a foreign country is being confronted with different cultural experiences. My surgery was done in a large hospital (800 beds?) in Luzern, Switzerland. The nursing staff was multilingual, as is the norm in Switzerland, and highly competent in my opinion. I do know good nurses from bad. In any event, the second day out of the OR, a nice Indian nursing instructor came in and asked in very good English, if she and a student could give me a bed bath as a teaching exercise. Now, I have spent 30 years or so in a teaching hospital environment, and I was fine with her request.
Before long I was lying on my back having each leg washed and dried. As I think we all know, pelvic modesty at this point in time is way out the window if you have had prostate cancer, so I had no compunction about these two ladies giving me a perineal wash. The student's English was limited to non-existent, so the instructor was doing a bilingual session. I became aware that the attention being paid to my penis was taking some time. I have to say that I have nothing in the way of a show-stopper in the penis department (John Holmes, I am not). Of course seeing a catheter was not unusual for both these women. What was unusual was that neither of them had ever seen a circumcised penis. When I inquired if there was a problem, the instructor said that they understood the importance of cleansing the foreskin of the penis, but they could not find one on me.
Thereafter, I gave a short history of circumcision, including the religious and social aspects of this procedure. The ladies were rapt with academic interest and spent some time discussing this in a Swiss dialect. This was accompanied with no small amount of manipulation, and at this point, I realized that indeed, the usual activity resulting from female manipulation was lacking in "the man". I also found it amusing and began to hope that my wife would not choose to make an entrance at this time. I thought that she would understand, but who can say? The ladies finished there explorations with newly acquired knowledge, finished my bath, thanked me nicely, and I did not see them again. I can tell you that I think the other students in the class got a new discussion of this pearl of nursing education at their next class. My wife took my news of this event with mixed emotions and was glad that she had missed the instructive events.
