Checkout with the surgeon

When did the people who go up to their elbows in your insides get so young? It hadn't really struck me in the hospital because I was so groggy, but on my final meeting with one of the surgeons who operated on the perforated ulcer, I suddenly thought, "This man could be my son" (though I prefer the one I have). I try to think of it as his having quick reflexes and good eye-hand coordination rather than impulsiveness and lack of experience.
In any case, since he and his partner did such a great job I shouldn't quibble about age.
Doctors get a kind of smugness shining through their professional veneer when they got it right, and this doctor radiated smug. He said that as long as I keep taking Pepsid, I can eat or drink anything, that I can do anything (I tried to get him to ban pilates, but he refused), and that a perforated ulcer, or any kind of ulcer, is unlikely, unless the cancer spreads, in which case it's a different kind of problem.
So I went to band rehearsal the next night, and if 90% of everything is just showing up, I did my 90%. And it was fun.