Last visit with Dr Guy Lee

I had a 9:20 a.m. appointment yesterday with Dr Guy Lee, the second and last of two post-op visits. He could not wait to take a look at the scar. And I couldn't wait to see him and thank him again.

My vertical scar is an inch and a half long. So now I have two surgical scars, neither of which I can see. My kidney t'plant scar is hidden by belly fat. I must content myself by looking at a scar on my knee I got when entering our tree fort where a nail went into my knee.

Dr Lee gave me a great two-handed handshake. Both hello and goodbye. He loved the article I wrote about him for Patch.com, Upper Moreland edition. He said everybody kept calling him to tell him about it. Abington hospital was ecstatic about the free promotion.

"Everything I said was absolutely true," I said, "including my fear of the mask they put on for anesthesia. But the nurses were wonderful."

"We've got a great team," he enthused.

Before the surgery I told him, I'd get up in the morning, have to go to the bathroom, but so dreaded the pain from getting out of bed that I'd wait 20 minutes.

There is one thing that's bothersome, I told him. It's not pain, I said, getting up and removing my left shoe.

I pointed to my entire left foot. "The whole foot has an annoying sensation, like pins n needles."

"Nerve damage," he said. "It'll take up to a year to heal."

I was relieved to hear that. I do not want my sciatica to return. Ever.

He told me that the Doylestown Patch.com had wrin about his rock band, Roses Cross, named after his wife Rose.

The band is composed of all doctors. Read the article here.

He told me I must love Metallica, the rock group he plays in the OR, since it seeped into my unconscious.

You don't wait long in Lee's waiting room. Highly organized. I brot my Starbucks book with me, Onward by CEO Howard Schulz.

I showed Lee what I was reading. "I don't drink coffee," I said, "but it's a great book. It makes you WANT to drink coffee."

"I guess I'm addicted," said Lee. It gives him energy.

Nothing wrong with that, I said, you've got important work to do.

I asked him where he got such energy. He's about 42. He said something about, Once I start I'm up and running. When he goes home for dinner, he gets his second wind and can help the kids with homework or practice his guitar.

He told me he and his wife were poor kids growing up in Philadelphia and now they live in a b'ful place in Point Pleasant, where my artist friends Barbara Postel and Carlos Guerrero live. It's a spectacular area with a view of the Delaware River and high rocky cliffs.

Good man.

In the parking lot I parked my car very far away to show myself the progress I'd made since August 3, the day of my surgery.

No more Handicap Parking for me.

I go on all our support group's Mike's Hikes w/o trepidation.

Free of pain at last!