Count Down

My sister is counting down to her sentencing. I am counting down to my surgery. It's a week away excluding the weekend which is more of a tangent of time than a direct link. The week just finished was my last normal week. I use normal a little loosely here. On Monday I have to have some preop testing done and I see my surgeon for clearance on Wednesday. Meanwhile I will be on a critical mission to clear my desk and shelves of any pending results. I will also try to clear the hospital of my patients. I want everybody tucked in for the duration. This is a fantasy of course. There is no way in hell I can get everybody well or even plugged into a fixed trajectory. I am compelled to try out of concern for them and compassion for the physicians who will be covering me without compensation of any sort. I am on call the weekend before my surgery so when not dealing with patient phone calls I will be desperately shoveling off my desk. Sunday night I sign out. I sign out of all this that makes up my daily professional life. I barely think about the surgery. My preparations now are not particularly different from what I have to do to try and get out of town for a day or two. Maybe I'm going on vacation. My patients very kindly wish me a good time while I'm "off" in July.