Most men don't even want to think about how a vasectomy happens. Not Dr. Phil McGraw. The talk-show host was a little, shall we say, hands-on when it came to getting the snip.
According to an essay McGraw wrote for Newsweek, back when wife Robin was expecting their son Jay, the couple decided one child was enough. So a doctor friend casually offered to have McGraw, then 29, come in to his office for the procedure.
The offer was so casual, in fact, that the friend didn't bother to book a nurse, and so had patient McGraw himself hand him the surgical instruments as needed. (McGraw's quotable comment on the operation itself? "It’s painful when they kind of pull on it.")
But six years later, McGraw's wife Robin let slip that she felt having only one child was the biggest regret of her life. McGraw's decision to get the vasectomy reversed was as speedy as it was to get it in the first place. The very next day, he mentioned it at the hospital where he worked and more doctor pals instantly offered to reverse the operation. And to think the rest of us have to wait months sometimes just for a checkup.
"They say, “Take your shirt off,” and they start plugging me into IVs," McGraw wrote in Newsweek. "I remember being in recovery and the doctors saying, “Wake up! We have to get you out of here.” They drag me out with one arm over each shoulder and drive me home. They dump me on the curb later that night."
The operation worked like a charm. Six weeks later, Robin McGraw was pregnant with their second son, Jordan.
Hooray for happy families and all that, but it's the helping with the operation that gets us. We shudder to think what would happen if Dr. Phil gets a sudden yearning for a root canal. Anybody got a power drill?
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