In recent weeks I have gained three holes in my stomach and five new staples, while I have one less appendix.

While this wasn't my idea of a fun weekend, what with surgery being among one of my biggest fears, it did get me to thinking about doctors and hospitals, and what a fun opinion piece that would be.

My view of doctors falls along the same lines as plumbers and mechanics. While I understand that they are helping people by performing a service the people can’t do by themselves, I also know that they charge more than it would take to reconstruct a person's entire body in caviar.  Not that this is a cure to anything other than boredom, but I think it makes a good illustration.

I know, of course, that insurance keeps the prices so high, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it.  All I know is that I'm paying someone to poke me with needles (something I happen to particularly hate) and otherwise make me feel worse than when I went in.

I honestly never understood the kids in grade school who would fake sick to stay home.  My own mother took me to the doctor at the least sign of trouble, so I'm sure other mothers were the same way.  I'd rather have 10 algebra tests than go to the doctor.  Then of course, there's also the chance that they'll put you in the hospital, the least restful place in the world.

Why a place where you're supposed to get well should keep you awake so much is beyond me.  It seems like nurses come in a few times during the day, but at night, watch out!  It's like a special anti-sleep task force designed to make sure your slumber is, at most, two hours long.  My brother told me a story about when he was in the hospital and a nurse woke him up to take a sleeping pill.  I'm almost positive he handled it better than I would have.

As if the pain and suffering they put you through in your own room is not enough, every once in a while a patient has to have surgery.  I think that they find the least friendly people possible to work in the operating room, probably because the patient is unconscious most of the time. 

While I have to applaud the innovative thinking of the hospital administrators for this move, I have to say that it makes a trip to sleepy-land a little worrisome.

For example, before my surgery, two large men came to my bed in the emergency room to take me in.  One looked at my arm-band to make sure I was the right person, even after I said I was.  I made some comment about that not making me feel absolutely safe in their hands, and one of the guys told me that it was so they wouldn't get sued.   That's it.  No sense of humor, no smile, no anything.

Let me bring the reader into my mind at this exact moment.  I am sitting in my bed, terrified of being cut while I'm asleep, and the orderlies from the operating room are worried about errant patients claiming surgeries they don't need.

I know that there are any number of times I have read in the newspapers about the rising surgery theft rate in the country.  Heard about it on the evening news just this past week.  A guy slipped in front of this woman that needed a hysterectomy, and the surgery personnel had no clue until they'd stitched him back up.  Yep, this idea racing through my mind just inspired all kinds of confidence.

Once I got into the surgery preparation area, I was examined by at least three people before they wheeled me off to the operating room.  As I was pushed in, a chill came over my body.  No, it wasn't unreasoning fear or evil in the air.  It was the normal temperature of the room.

They had me scoot over onto the surgery table, which seemed about as wide as a balance beam, and without a "hi, how you doing?" or anything, they injected the anesthetic into me.  It made my arm burn, and that's the last thing I remember before being rudely awakened from my nice little dream. I don't really know what my dream was about, but it had to be better than waking up was.

After that, it was all downhill.  I spent the next day finding sticky-pad hookups on my body from the machines they used during surgery (don't they count them before they put them on?) and removing the large amounts of extra sheets that had mysteriously appeared on my bed while I slept.  I went home the next day, and couldn't have been happier to be out of the hospital.

Anyway, my surgery was a success, though I don't think the mortality rate among appendectomy patients is very high.  I just feel comforted knowing that a big fear of mine has been faced...and it was everything I thought it would be.