And another thing...

Beware the Goober.

I go up to see my sister at the QEII. You want to talk about a different world. We were sitting waiting for her IV to be changed and her doctors (plural) walk in to talk to her about her surgery.

There were five of them. They were explaining why she would not be having her surgery on Friday. Apparently, they are putting it off for another 2 weeks. They explained that they would keep her in Halifax instead of sending her home to wait because it was the best place to be if something went wrong. Whereas, if she were to go home to the local hospital it would be harder to get her back in an emergency.

I looked at my sister, "Holy shit, this right here is more doctors in one room than I have seen in my entire life. Back at home you would be lucky to find two standing next to each other in the cafeteria." More doctors is good. She was in the local hospital for 2 days before she saw a doctor. Now they are coming out of the woodwork.

They look at me like they know exactly what I mean. The head guy informs her that her 'surgeon' will be in to talk to her as well. Yes people, she has even more doctors.

My sister's surgeon walks in and starts to describe why he is not going to do the surgery on Friday. If she was sicker, they would rush but since they have time, they will pump her full of antibiotics and then cut her open. My sister is just nodding and smiling, so I take over the questioning.

"So, do you think that it could reverse itself to some degree?"

"Not reverse, but make the valve stronger to the point where we could possibly repair it instead of replace it. We want to make sure there is as little residual infection in there as possible before we go in. You know, there could be a little goober floating around that could get us in trouble." I kid you not. He used the word 'goober'.

"The only thing is," He says, "I will be gone from the sixth to the sixteenth. So when you are ready I may not be available. If you want you can wait for me or go with another member of the team, we will talk about that when the time comes."

"How many on your 'team'?" I was wondering how many we had to choose from.

"Five" he says.

"So, are you the best?"

Without even thinking he says, "No." Then he looks at me, smiles and wags a finger at me. "Your funny."

"Don't be shy, cuz if you are the best, we'll wait for ya."

Later when we were in the lobby getting coffee, I feel a hand on my elbow. I turn to see the surgeon. "I just wanted to clarify. Every person on our team is equally qualified to do this surgery. I am very good, but we don't keep score on which of us are the best."

"That's ok, I would be worried if you had said you were the best."

Nothing worse than a God complex.