Now, we had never met this Doc before. Nor even talked with him. He, the man who was going to, as the wife said to her co-workers, "cut her throat."

Technically, all she needed was a biopsy of the "cold mass" the radiation tests had detected. But it was one of those locations where the effort and risk of a biopsy was equal to, or greater than, the risks of a simple removal. Hence, the appointments with a surgeon.

He was young. We expected that, being a referral of our family Doc, who is also quite young.

Now, this wasn't any sort of preferential deal. To be fair, our Doc had mentioned several surgeons who could do the work.

So my wise wife asked him "Which one would you take your wife to?"

So here we were.

Wife first apologized for being late (We got in the door of their office, after first rushing to their respective restrooms, 20 minutes late for her appointment. And naturally the waiting room was empty, so it wasn't like we would have waited anyway.), and the Surgeon's response?

"Were you late? What time was your appointment?" Totally unphased by the delay in his day. Liked him immediately.

After a brief overview of the surgery, and additional actions that would be taken while she was under the anesthesia if preliminary biopsy found cancerous cells, we moved to another room for the paperwork part of the whole deal.

His eyes opened wide when he got to the part of the form where she had listed the vitamins she takes regularly. A whole half page of fine print. "You take a lot of vitamins," he said.

We have had our own discussions about how unnecessary and wasteful "supplementary" vitamins are, so I was thrilled to hear a health professional take the same position. He even used the words "giant rip-off" in describing the vitamin industry.

It was great. When he paused, afraid he may have said too much, I leaned back in the big chair, put my hands behind my head and encouraged him to continue. Then he saw the vitamin bottle label taped on the back of the surgery form, which listed the multiple vitamins she takes in addition to all the ones she had listed on the front of the form. After pointing out that you get all the vitamins you will need for days in one bowl of cereal, and that the rest is, in his own words "pissed away," he decided to lay off his patient.

Not that she was listening, anyway. But I think the word to describe my feelings is smug.

Then it was hoofing it two blocks to the hospital, for the pre-admission review and tests. Where I got to sit in the little waiting room with other family members, as each surgical victim was called in back.

One young man was there with his baby daughter sleeping on his chest. Said she was "five and a half weeks" old. Heh, I can remember keeping track of children's ages to the nearest half week.

You lose that after a while. Eventually you have to do the math in your head to figure out how many years they've been around.

Really. You'll see.

Wife was pleased that her fasting in preparation of anesthesia didn't start until midnight (according to the surgeon) or twelve hours pre-surgery according to the forms.

That meant dinner at Botticelli's.