Procedure

I'm due at the local med center at 9:30 tomorrow morning [later today], to check in for outpatient surgery for the health problem I noticed in June.

I feel fine. I'm not even worrying. That will resume when I'm waiting for the results of the biopsy thereafter.

Routine procedure dictates that I must ingest nothing by mouth after this past midnight. Not a lozenge, not a stick of gum, not a swig of toothpaste water (ick). The rule is so strict, I'm surprised they don't tell you you can't swallow your own spit.

I know what it's for. They don't want to run the slightest risk that you'll have a bad reaction with the anesthesia while you're under and throw up and choke. So I'm observing the strictures-- meaning that as soon as midnight struck, I was immediately sensible of a raging thirst, even though I'd had a couple glasses of water within the half hour!

Funny, what your mind will do to you.

I've finished the draft of my sermon for Sunday, so I can lie around Friday and Saturday, if need be. It's about two-thirds the length of my usual productions, and if anything, it needs cut down even more. The church I'm supplying this Sunday has Sunday School scheduled exactly an hour after the beginning of worship, and this is a Communion Sunday. With all three Lectionary readings. And a children's sermon, and a choir anthem. And they'll probably want at least ten minutes to get from the sanctuary to the classrooms. That leaves me fifty minutes if I'm lucky to get through everything.

Dickens of a way to do things, but it's the way it is.

Besides, the official Sunday School beginning time may be one of those merely monitory things, to keep people from showing up to class at half-past the hour.

On the other hand, the lady who called me from the Med Center said I was to be at the Outpatient Surgery door at 9:30 AM. Period, the end.