Cancel All Plans People...

Clear your diaries and cancel all plans people... THE CALL has come through! Finally after months of waiting a date has been set for my much anticipated op, the one that should finally put Humpty Dumpty here back together. So crack open the champagne and call Liz to say she'll need to vacate the palace this weekend cause we got some celebrating to do (pause for cheers and whoops of joy).

And while this is great news and a relief the worst part of it all is telling the children, or at least 'child' as my 12 year old son took the news like any other teenager would, he shrugged his shoulders, stuck his headphones back on and told me to get the fuck out of his room. My daughter on the other hand was a heap of tears. I tried to explain to her that it's so they can 'fix Daddy' to which she blubbered 'But they said they were going to fix you before, but they didn't!'... Fair point and I can only reply with 'But they definitely will fix me this time... (I hope)'

So tomorrow I make the trip across the border for my pre-op, a four hour round trip for a hospital discussion that will probably last less than 20 minutes...  Perhaps I'll stop for a spot of lunch? Maybe enjoy a cup of Earl Grey whilst gazing dreamily out of the Hospitals Costa Cofee window, admiring the colourful sculptures of the Children's Hospital which I once came to regard as my home away from home.

Surgery is then scheduled for Friday, as you can guess from my last post I know that date isn't set in stone, but more a little piece of Play-Doh of a young mans dreams which could be squashed at any time. I just hope that if they do decide to cancel it, I get the call the night before and not as I'm packing all my crap into the car, having worked myself up in anticipation of being sliced open again, and spent all night staring into the black void of night with enough thoughts battling through my mind to march on Kings Landing.

I sort of know what they wish to do when they have me lying on that cold, hard slab and I sort of don't. Its an ablation, which I've had before, so I know they're gonna shove wires into my heart and start burning shit away, but a different ablation so I don't really know how much shit they're gonna burn and if it entails anything. Questionable also is what the expected outcome is and what, if any, limitations I'll have following it. But these are all things I should learn tomorrow. ...

And now I shall talk of a tale from last night, where to celebrate 'The Date' me and the missus went on, erm, a date. In which I ended up giving true meaning to my blogs namesake....

We ended up in little pub, a tiny little establishment which seemed to be breaking all kinds of health and safety regulations. The lighting was almost non existent, the sound volume made me thankful to be deaf in one ear and the amount of people packed into the joint would have been a Fire Marshall's nightmare. So having slammed a few cocktails back and completely filled my bladder I needed to visit the little boys room. Being in unfamiliar territory obviously I had to ask for directions so I found the most trustworthy man you can find at bar, an Aussie and he sent me on my way.

So off I went, leaving Caroline  dancing on the table like some Vegas stripper and headed for lavatories. I sorry'd and excused my way through the shoulder to shoulder crowd of young, hip kids busting their moves and throwing shapes and made it across the room. I'd come to a rather long corridor and realised that there was in fact an entire other room!
I headed down the corridor and saw someone heading in my direction, the height of the man put a smile on my face as I realised I wasn't the only vertically challenged guy in the building. As I got closer I sidestepped left to let him past, but he had the same thing in mind, so I quickly went right, as did he. I switched back left, where he followed and it ended up in that awkward left, right, left, right, hey up we're gonna end up in some kind of awkward embrace. In an effort to avoid such an embarrassing situation I  put my arm out to take his shoulder so I could slide past him and avoid this unwanted collision, only my hand never reached his shoulder and hit some kind of wall or something. It was dark, I was drunkingly disoriented so I couldn't tell. I shimmied around and started to stick my right arm out to brace his shoulder and avoid the collision, but my head slammed into something instead...

Then it clicked. There was no wall, no long corridor, no other room and, there was no man either... It was a fucking mirror! A big, giant, massive fucking mirror that stretched right across the room! I'd be dancing back and forth attempting to avoid my own reflection. As two girls sat just a few feet away had seen the whole affair and were probably wondering what the hell this drunken idiot is doing dancing with himself in the mirror, I decided that I didn't really need to pee and headed back, disappearing into the sea of people hoping that the quickening of my heart from sheer embarrassment didn't cause for a night in A&E...

'So Andrew, did anything bring it on this time?'

'Erm, not really Doc...'