Okay – I know that I am not going to win a Booker for this blog but today’s is just a record of Monday before I forget. So reader be warned - it is more of the same.

I did not sleep well the night before my anticipated surgery. I did toss and turn and I did not need the alarm to wake me. The morning routine was quite simple: just shave, and brush my teeth and dress. My wife of course, drove me to the hospital. I felt like an eight year old, no wallet, my hospital info stuff was with my wife, and I had no money or keys.

My brain felt peculiarly vacant. While some would postulate that this is nothing new, I found it sort of comforting. My wife, in my view, was doing most of the talking as we drove the short distance to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. Friends had graciously offered a room at their house, where, as an added bonus my wife got to sip on expensive bourbon. (the evening before – not in the morning although I am sure that she could have used a shot at about 8:45 a.m.)

We arrived at the UOHI at 5:45 a.m. and just about everything is closed, including the parking lot. Make sure you bring toonies and loonies for meters if you have an early morning at the hospital. The doors to the Pre Admission Unit opened at about 6:15 and I was shunted off to a bed while my wife had to do paperwork (sounds fair to me). Another man and I were given side by side beds, separated by the hospital curtains. The things offer no privacy and I heard that his procedure had been postponed from Friday.

I am instructed to totally undress and put on the hospital gown. I put my clothes in a bag I had been instructed to bring and, after a few checks to make sure I am who I am, Pauline shaves my chest, left arm and legs and groin. It tickles. Then I am off to ashower, get a new gown, and am back in bed as snug as a bug. My wife has signed the papers and we chat.

I am given a few pills with a warning that they take a bit of time to “kick in”. Then three gurneys arrive and I hop on one and an oxygen mask is slipped on me. My wife is allowed to escort me on the elevator and down the hall. Then we come to “Door One” the “Rubicon Door”. My wife kisses me on the forehead (I am wearing the oxygen mask) . I tear up a bit, alternately thinking that this is the last time I may see her and that the ceiling needs cats painted on it. I think the pills are starting to kick in.

I am the first in the OR waiting room, waiting for the others to come. As Pauline puts it “like ducks in a row”. My OR nurse comes up to me and asks if I am set. I am. She says it will just be a few minutes. I make a joke about Grey’s Anatomy – she tells me the operating room stuff is bunk. (Mind you I have never seen an entire episode.) I close my eyes. I feel the cool swish of the invisible oxygen splaying against my face. I see my first day at kindergarten. I see my first dog. I see myself walking along the old railway track behind my parents’ house with my second dog. I hear a voice beside me, asking medical questions of the man who has now been wheeled beside me. Ah, it is his anesthetist. Are you allergic? Did you eat anything? We administer a ….. No that last statement is coming from another bed from another anesthetist. But where is my guy?

I had joked (yes, yes, I know - I am a laugh a minute) with my cardiac surgeon about seeing him the day of my surgery. He replied that I would not see him as I would be in a deep sleep. Of course when I saw him walking up to my gurney, I knew that it would be a day not as planned for me, for him, my anesthetist, nor anyone else on that team.

Another upside to all this – my surgeon is doing a concert on Sunday in Ottawa and I get to hear him sing. I am going to applaud loud.

My wife and I are driven home by our beagle. Those drugs aren’t bad.