‘Little Couple’ Star Bill Klein ‘Sick’ Preparing for Wife Jen Arnold’s Surgery

Bill Klein couldn’t help but be “sick to [his] stomach” for wife Dr. Jen Arnold as she prepared to go in for her hip replacement surgery in a sneak peek of Tuesday’s season premiere of The Little Couple on TLC.

“We’ll be revising Jen’s right hip, which has been in place for many years and unfortunately looks like one of the components is loose and the other part is really worn out,” Arnold’s surgeon explained to the camera as she was prepped for surgery. “I worry about the technical aspects of the surgery, making sure the components fit. We have to have very special components available to fit her size. And she has a very difficult airway, so we have real concerns from an anesthetic standpoint.”

For Klein, having his wife go under anesthesia was nerve-wracking for more than just the typical reasons.

“There’s different sets of risks associated with any major surgery, and skeletal dysplasia complicates things,” he explained. “We metabolize medications at a different rate, so it’s hard to tell whether you have enough or not enough — and you really want to have just enough when you’re having your leg cut open so that you don’t feel it, but not too much to where you never feel it again, ever. So there’s those concerns.”

“Part of me knows exactly what it feels like, and part of me is just sick to my stomach that I’m watching her have to go through it,” he added. “People die on the operating table all the time, and you can’t help but think about that a little bit because that’s the only thing you’re able to think about. There’s nothing else going on.”

Even as a physician, Arnold admitted to the camera she was “nervous” to be going under.

“I just want to make it out the other side,” she admitted, telling Klein, “Take care of the kids, in case it doesn’t have the best outcome.”

For more on Arnold’s surgery, tune into The Little Couple, returning Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on TLC.

Photo credit: YouTube/TLC