Life as a Leach

The hospital surgical waiting room is an interesting place.  It's the place where parents go to sit, wait, worry, pace, and cry as their children are being operated on.  This is my 18th time doing this.  I've been in three different waiting rooms at three different hospitals, but they are all basically the same. We are all together in the same room, waiting for our child to go to recovery.  The surgery could be something as simple as ear tubes, something quick but worrisome like a biopsy, or something very serious like a brain tumor.  But no matter what the reason people have come into the waiting room, we are all concerned about our children on that operating table.  In that, we are all the same. As I look around right now, I notice the furrowed brow of the mom trying to hold it together as she worries about her child.  I hear the laughter of the large group in the corner who have gathered to distract the family and try to...