First on the list is my urologist, Dr. Sutton. His office in the Med Center is warm and full of bears – he’s from Idaho. I guess they’re known for bears?

He comes in to greet us, a bundle of energy and confidence, and starts explaining his part of the surgery.

“When is your surgery again?”

“July 8^th.”

(Looking at his calendar) “Oh good, I’ll still be here.”

That’s something you guys checked before you set the date, right??

Anywho, he explains that he will go in and weave these flexible, glowing lights through my ureters all the way up to my kidneys, and it will make my body look like an airport runway at night.

The purpose is to make the ureters really obvious, because they are extremely delicate, and if Dr. Mangal accidentally lasers one during the procedure then that is bad news bears. But that’s his one job. Lights go in, and he heads back to the office, leaving the rest to Mangal.

He then asked me if I had seen the colo-rectal surgeons yet and I said no. “Good”, he said, “Because they will scare you.”

“What?”

“Oh, they’ll tell you how they may have to remove part of your colon and you will have to wear a colostomy bag for a couple weeks, but those are all worst case scenarios. I’m glad you’re seeing me first – just remember not to get freaked out by what they say.”

Too late. Already scared.

10 minutes later, we paid and left. Bada bing, bada boom! These surgeon meet and greets are gonna be a breeze! Finally a girl catches a break…