The smell of freedom AKA the best birthday ever.

first off, the facts, then I will ruminate for those who wish to continue on.

Lynn was wheeled in around 9 and she was out at 11. Shoulder is very very sore, but she is in very very good spirits. She and I talked for quite a while this afternoon.

She had no unplanned cardiac episodes during the surgery, and they pronounced the device working in every way.

Now me.

for four years, I have had to rehearse a speech. It was the speech that no parent every wants to have to rehearse. It is the speech that no one ever even wants to complemplate having to *rehearse*.

every caller-id indentifed call from my house, and the speech comes to my mind. Every time my wife would call and say, "I need you home NOW". Every night she would go to bed with angina, or wake up with angina, or I would be calling 911 at 1am. Every time I thought about this, I rehearsed the speech.

Its a speech I didn't want to rehearse. Its a speech I had hoped would get easier with time (in the mind-bendingly horrible event I had to deliver it to our girls), but it never did. Always the same. And I felt horrible for it. guilty for even thinking of it, I felt it was necessary although I didn't want to have to ever every deliver that speech.

this implant has practical consequences. Freeing properties, if you will. We no longer have to plan our outings around the nearest hospital. We can go camping at the coast (45 mins to hospital), we can go to Sauvies and pick berries ( 1 hour to hospital), and we can go weed in the yard. She won't die from this.

But for this day, I get to be selfish:

For my birthday, I get to retire that speech.