Rob Delaney opens up about having a vasectomy without sedation: 'I just had to ride that pain wave'
‘I’m a bit of a breakfast guy,’ explained actor
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Rob Delaney has opened up about his decision to have a vasectomy.
Writing in The Guardian, the actor and comedian explained he wanted to have the procedure so that his wife, Leah, could come off birth control.
“I figured after all my wife, Leah, and her body had done for our family, the least I could do was let a doctor slice into my bag and sterilise me,” he wrote.
“Leah had taken birth control for decades, which is a giant pain in the a** and also decidedly sexist pharmacological slavery.”
However, the actor revealed that he had the procedure without being sedated, though he did have local anaesthetic.
“If you’re wondering if I could feel what they were doing, the answer is yes,” he wrote.
After informing the doctors that he was in pain, Delaney was given some more novacaine.
“Since I’m not proud, I will tell you that at this point I asked for drugs or laughing gas or anything else they had handy,” he continued.
“The nurse in turn asked me if I’d eaten breakfast that morning.
“The answer was yes, because it didn’t say explicitly not to in the literature they’d given me beforehand and I’m a bit of a breakfast guy.
“Thus, they couldn’t sedate me, lest I vomit up my breakfast and then choke on it.”
Delaney revealed that it was the first surgery he’d had in the UK with the NHS.
“Nice and easy preliminary process,” he said. “I got a referral from the GP in my neighbourhood, then had an appointment with a balls guy.”
Delaney, who has three children with Leah, added that he found being in a hospital difficult because of the death of his son, Henry, who died in 2018 at the age of two.
“Hospitals make me sad, but also give me a deep peace, as I spent so much time in hospitals while our son Henry was being treated for brain cancer,” he wrote.
“Starting just after his first birthday, he lived in hospitals for 14 months. He visited them often after that while he lived at home for the final seven months of his short, beautiful life.”
Delaney said that he occasionally fantasised about staying in hospital after his proceadure so he could feel closer to Henry.
“But I was also glad it would be an outpatient procedure, so I could get home to my alive kids and wife, who need me,” he concluded.
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