The Surgical Adventures of Ken
(a.k.a. "The Tin Man") - Day 3

First Update


Day one was for initial tests - blood & urine samples, etc... and the afternoon was spent walking around the East Side with Ken pointing out all of his old haunts from his NYU days.

We had a Polish dinner at Kiev’s and a nightcap at McSorley’s (co-ed bathroom! And Kyle just loved that).

Day two was the Cardiac Catheterization, and everything went fine, although Ken was a little uncomfortable. He was kept in the hospital in the "Short Stay Unit" until 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday after the CC, then walked back to the apartment for a little while before we went out to dinner. His parents and 2 sisters arrived on the train and took a hair-raising cab ride through the city to the apartment.

Ken had his "heart" set on a big steak, which is all he talked about from the time the catheterization was over. So we went to the Stuyvesant Town Cafe on the corner and pigged out in the Patio garden. Part of Ken’s steak was fed to a mouse who visited us. Our waitress, Mary, was great and Ken nicknamed her "Buddha Hackett" as she is a female version of the famous Buddy.

After we came back from dinner he showed his family this web-site (they really didn’t want to see the Graphics) and they spent about ½ hour browsing, looking over his page, surfing the Net, and Instant Messaging with friends.

Then came the "fun" part - he had to "shave" his chest. Actually they gave him "Surgical Hair remover" (which is just generic Nair). He had to put it all over his chest and leave it on for 20 minutes, then shower it off and voila! No more hair!

Kyle has been keeping a photo "journal" of all the key elements (especially him with the Nair all over him).

DAY 3 (or should I say "D-DAY"?)

The day started out at just after 4:00 am (for everybody EXCEPT Larry - who started at 5:20 am).
Ken had to be in the admitting room at 6:00 am and Kyle got some picture of us when he was leaving to go to the hospital (across the street) for the Ross Procedure.
We sat with Ken until about 6:45 when they "took him in" and then came back to the apartment, had coffee and breakfast then Larry passed out until about 10:30

12:40 pm - got the call from Dr. Stelzer, and everything was great news We went to go see Ken and met with the Doctor, who told us that Ken is his 201st Ross Procedure.

We gave Dr. Stelzer the web page and before we left, he brought the web page up on the computer in the Cardiac Surgery ICU and the nurses and he checked it out.

Ken was alert before we left, he wanted hugs and then wrote down "Awesome" when we told him everything went great.

He is currently driving the nurses Ann, Monique and Daniel (among others) nuts, but better them than us.

He posed for some pictures with his breathing tube in and then again when he got it out.
He posed for some more pictures with Dr. Stelzer and the nursing staff.

These pictures will be on this site next week

Stay tuned for more...

email Ken: Ken@KensKollectibles.com
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