BY THE WAY: HOSPITALS WITH ODD SCENTS, `WEIRD ANATOMIES'

This figures to be one of those who-knows-what-to-expect visits to St. Louis.

There is some good news to savor while making the trek north on I-55. I just learned that the four-hour operation my mother endured was a success and her chances of eluding cancer are very good.

The doctor told my sister Cathy things went so well, there was no need to put our mother in intensive care. His only other comment was that she had "a weird anatomy." I'm sure the bill that follows will be even more "weird."

The unknown comes into play, however, when I visit my mother in this place we call a hospital.

I must confess the only time I've ever spent a night in a hospital was to stay with my father, who was dying of cancer. I've never spent a night wearing one of those funny-looking gowns with the back open.

I guess I'm fortunate in that regard. But that leaves me at a loss when it comes to figuring out how most of these places really operate (no pun intended).

Every time I've ventured into a hospital it seems like everyone is so intent on their job, the people who need to pay a visit always seem to be in the way.

Doctors and nurses whisk by as if the entire day were structured on a code-blue schedule. I learned that phrase on some television show. I'm assuming they actually use that phrase, but I've never heard it during any visits.

Every hospital seems different. But they also have features that ultimately link them to the same thing. I'm thinking the architect of the last hospital I visited was bitter about some operation he or she had and designed the building like a maze to punish those who made life miserable.

It seems easy enough to find a room when you look at the numbers and arrows. But the corridors seem endless.

I've never understood what is on those charts that doctors and nurses study. Perhaps that's why they're written in Latin.

At some point, usually during that inevitable trek down those long corridors, various smells begin to linger in my nostrils.

No matter how hard a hospital tries it seems it can never rid itself of that inevitable sanitized odor. I realize when you've got to keep the place as clean as possible, you're not going to get the most pleasant smell. There are probably many people who aren't even bothered by it.

Those people are more worried about the status of the person they're visiting. Fortunately, this should be one of those worry-free visits.

Cathy, who used to be a nurse in the very hospital I'm visiting, left the profession with something of a cynical point of view. I remember she told me nurses are nothing more than overpaid maids. I always wondered why she waited until she left the profession before making such an observation.

Actually I can appreciate the work doctors and nurses do because it seems like a thankless job. If they do everything right nobody is likely to say anything. If they make a mistake there's always the threat of a lawsuit.

The only time I have a problem with nurses is when they try to convince me the patient looks great when they really don't. If they looked and felt great, they wouldn't need to be in a hospital. That's what I want to say. But I never do.

I think I'll just concentrate on the positive results from the operation and forget about the fact that this is the only place that a doctor could identify a "weird anatomy" with a smile.

~Bill Heitland is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.