That Time When my Semen was on Everybody’s Mind

 It takes a village…

One of the first questions that blurted out of my mouth after my doctor finished telling me I had Leukemia was: “Will I still be able to live a normal life? Can I have kids in the future if I choose to?”

He said “of course you can and I hope you do!”…he must be of my school of thought in that this would would be a far better place if there were several genetic copies of me running around. Basically I owe it to society to procreate, for the common good.

He also mentioned that chemo is going to absolutely nuke my sperm generators… my very own personal “deflate gate” (sorry if you are reading this after Superbowl XLIX and this term means absolutely nothing to you anymore, deal with it). This is where my awesome oncology social workers get to shine!

We got to work immediately. The team consisted of a gorgeous  young RN, my breathtaking social worker, an absolutely stunning endocrinologist and me. The three intimidatingly good looking, talented women stood around me in positions of authority and we discussed the logistics of how many times I could masturbate into how many plastic cups over a certain period of time. Look, I’m not trying to sound like a pig or turn this into a Penthouse Forum or anything, but  it was one of the more surreal moments of my life. It was basically the plot of a porn movie that was written by a 12-year old boy (aren’t they all kind of like that?). And no, I absolutely never made any jokes about “needing a little help” or anything, because A.) I have an amazing girlfriend who is all I will ever need in this regard B.) I have to work with these women, C.) I’m not a pig and D.) talk about low hanging joke fruit… about as low hanging as my fruit will be after chemo.. wah wah waaaaah.

The situation was pretty intense, actually. There were so many obstacles standing between us and a future of  little Jason clones. The sperm bank that we had to work with was a 40 minute drive away, it was a weekend so they had very narrow hours, I had to get the sample out before I started chemo that day, sperm only lasts so long after it is liberated from its native junk, and I cannot leave the hospital. We figured out that I had a 30 minute window to ejaculate as many times as I could into as many plastic cups as possible… and then we had to have somebody rush deliver them, secret agent style, to the sperm bank.

This was one of those situations that made me really appreciate the people in my life and how far they are willing to go for me, even when it comes to playing Transporter with my semen.

My girlfriend, Liana, stepped up to the plate… possibly because she has a vested interest in my limited baby making potions. She offered to wake up early the next day play the pivotal courier role. Unfortunately, as anybody knows her understands, Liana isn’t terribly gifted when it comes to geography. She is brilliant and talented in all other fields, but when it comes to directions: bless her heart. So we elicited the help of her mom’s boyfriend to pick her up and drive her from points A, B and C to make sure that there were no time wasting mistakes. Remember that every second lost was one less potential perfect Jason clone.

Our (wet) dream team was assembled, our plan was in place and thus it all came down to me and the most important orgasm of my life. I was admittedly nervous… there were a lot of moving parts and focused hearts involved. I had stress dreams the night before about my performance. It was how I imagine soldiers feel the night before heading to battle (but with fewer orgasms).

My entire hospital unit needed to be made aware of what was going on, because nurses crash in and out of our rooms without knocking all the time…so it needed to be made known that my room was off limits from 6:30-7:00 am that day. There were several “do not disturb signs” on my door and all of the night nurses made it abundantly clear to me that they knew what was happening and they would give me all the space I needed (while snickering at me.) Even the nurses I have no contact with knew what was going on… my masturbation was the news of the morning. This is my life now.

Now for the deed itself. I’m only sharing this because despite the actual content, the intent is super sweet and romantic. I needed some help, because of the pressure…so Liana (I love you so much, honey) went out of her way to send some visual aids to my phone. This turned out to be very useful in a practical and sexy sense, but I was happiest to have them so I could look into her eyes during the “conception” of what I hope to be our children… in a roundabout way. I wanted there to be at least SOME romance involved with the act and I’m so thankful that I can say that there was. She really is the best.

I was only able to get one off (give me a break, I don’t have any fucking blood left in my cancer body). Liana grabbed the jar, tucked it into her armpit to keep it at body heat and ran out the door to the car. They made it to the sperm bank in record time, and everybody there was in on the drill and was ready to receive them. They thought our circumstances were so special (and pathetic?) that they gave me a HUGE discount on the sperm bank fees. I’m so #leukey

So to sum up this madcap caper, my semen was the focal point of an embarrassingly large number of people for an entire day….and I couldn’t be more thankful for everybody that helped. It really is a huge deal and I’ll never forget how it made me feel. THANK YOU EVERYONE

CODA:
^that’s a music term for you uncultured rubes out there. It basically means “amendment to original story”

I got a call from the sperm bank after they made my deposit and they told me that I had more room in my safety deposit box. They suggested we repeat the process tomorrow, to raise the odds of future insemination success. We put the same plan in action the following morning, but instead of my girlfriend transporting and incubating the delicate cargo with her body heat, my best friend Kevin stepped up to the plate. When you are friends with somebody for 25 years they are apparently willing to drive across town keeping a cup full of your jizz warm between their legs like a mother hen. It’s definitely the nicest thing he’s ever done for me and I owe him a truly terrifying favor in the future.