My View From the Waiting Room

So it's Mike, K.C.'s loving husband - she asked me to write a post about my view of her recent surgery. I'll be honest, most of the day involved waiting, and waiting, and waiting...but here's three observations.

1. The new wing of the Paoli Hospital is really nice. There's a beautiful new atrium and all kinds of high tech stuff. Being on the outside, it was kinda neat to be able to "follow" the progress of K.C.'s surgery at a computer terminal. I can best describe it as a ticker, sort of like the one at the bottom of all sports programming (constantly showing scores). Instead of scores, it displayed things like "in surgery," "in recovery," etc... So even though the one douchebag surgeon didn't come out after he was done to let me know how K.C. was doing, at the very least I knew her 2nd surgery was over and she was in recovery.

One note to Paoli Hospital - get some TVs in the waiting area. The old waiting area at least had a small TV so I could distract myself by keeping down the vomit caused from watching "The View" or "Ellen." Unfortunately, as big and beautiful this new wing of the hospital was, no TV (or magazines) in the waiting room. What's the deal? Thank god I had a BlackBerry to keep me busy or I would have lost it.

2. K.C.'s surgeons couldn't have been more different. The first surgeon was really personable, came in to visit K.C. before her procedure, they swapped some jokes, and seemed to put her at ease. After the surgery, he came out and personally told me how it went, what to expect, and answered any questions I had. The second guy...he might be a talented surgeon, but he really came off as an assclown. Not only did he not acknowledge K.C.'s presence in the room prior to her surgery (just a quick pop-in to sign some forms), but he didn't even come out following to let me know (or the ladies at the surgical desk) how it went. Surgeon #2, did make an appearance later in the day when K.C. was up in her room. Unfortunately she was trying to pee (which I guess can be very difficult after you've had a catheter), and was on the toilet. He basically hollered his instructions to K.C. from across the room while she was on the throne, tried to crack some ill timed jokes, and then scurried out when K.C. screamed "I just want to pee!" Oh, and he was wearing some sort of size medium brown velvet looking track jacket. I don't care if I ever see the guy again.

3. As if it's any revelation - my wife further established the fact that she is one amazing woman. I couldn't believe how well she handled everything despite the tremendous pain, extreme nausea, medically induced constipation, and multiple contraptions hooked up to her chest. It's incredible how she's shown great strength and humility while balancing the needs of a 3 year old daughter (& a husband that at times is just as needy). As cheesy as it sounds my love, admiration, and respect for her continues to grow with each step in her journey, and I realize more and more how incredibly lucky I am to have her in my life.