The first important thing to know about this adventure is the time frame.  My operation was schedualed for Thursday, August 17th at 12:10pm.  When I got up at 10am on Wednesday, I decided it might be fun to just not sleep again until I was safely on the operating table.. then they wouldn't even need anaesthetic, right?  Well it seemed smart at the time okay?  Just lay off.
The first few pics here are from Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Tensions were running high as the time for my life-altering operation came closer.. even Ben wasn't immune to it's maddening effects.

Even in the best of times Chris is a violent man, having sent his fair share of young girls to hospital.  On a night like this however, something primeval took over in him.  This is right before he transformed into a demon and tore Jed's lungs out through his back.  He gave them back after though, and Jed was fine.

We decided at some point to grab something to eat at Denny's, and since there wasn't much room in the car Ben rode laying on the hood.  These pics were taken through the windshield.

At Denny's we met a friendly black man begging for food.  We were forced to decline, having none ourselves, but some snotty oriental girls graced him with an onion ring.

The friendly black man had some interesting friends, including 7 girls he claimed he picked up at the bar... and this guy, who had an... incident in the bathroom.

Well, at 8:30 in the morning on Thursday we decided to leave Ben's house (went there after Denny's so I could get some for the last time.. I mean so we could watch a movie, yeah.. that's it) and head off to the lovely Peter Lougheed hospital.  After getting slightly lost we ended up getting there at about 9:05am, 5 minutes before I was supposed to check in.

The Peter Lougheed Center.  It's like a mall on the inside... very strange.  Nice day though, eh?

Alberta Health Care Card, never leave home without it.  I thought I did for a second, and nearly had a heart attack.

Here I am being ignored at the desk, I assume because of how I look.  Then Jed took the picture and all the nurses freaked.  One of them was really nice to us.. she'd come by and insult me every now and then, like when she asked if we were playing old rummy, and Jed said no, it was some game out of a book called 'Card games for Dummies' and she said 'Well then I guess it's perfect for you guys.'.. of course I was thinking 'Yes, if we were playing with YOU we'd be playing old rummy.' but I said nothing because she was the charge nurse.  Now if someone important sees this, feel free to fire her ugly ass.

For some reason, infection prevention calls for all jewelery to be taped to your body.  It's hard to see but they've taped all three of my earrings and my ring to me, it looked incredibly stupid.  They also did this some 3 hours before the actual operation began, just so I could feel like a fool for longer.

Ooh-lah-lah!  In my hospital gown, medical tape and black sock combo, I was turning heads everywhere I went.  Of course they weren't done yet with making me look stupid.

Here's a lovely X-ray of my shoulder.  If you have a trained eye and you look close you can tell it's a little on the messed up side.

Told you they weren't done making me look dumb!  With the addition of an IV I don't think I know anyone who wouldn't have laughed out loud if they saw me at this point.

Here we are trying to waste the two extra hours they gave us.  I don't know what's wrong with the medical profession, but I think it's gonna take an exorcist to fix it.

Here we are sitting outside.. still waiting.  This was a very boring 2 hours of my life.  At least it was a nice day.. and at least I look really cool in my big ass shoes with a stupid gown and an IV pole.

UH OH!  While we were outside waiting... Jed's shoe broke!  It's an adventure within an adventure as Jed tries to figure out how to fix his shoe in a hospital!  But as you can see from the expression on his face, he wasn't about to quit.

Luckily the nurses gave Jed some tape to fix his shoe with, although they seemed very angry about it.

Voila!  All better, can you even tell where it was broken?  Didn't think so.

Well, the time has finally come!  They piled some stuff on the bed and took me over to... ANOTHER WAITING ROOM!  But after only 40 minutes in there the actual operation began.

Yay!  I lived!  Here I am sleeping off the anaesthetic.. covered in iodine so that I look jaundiced.  The big blue thing on me would fill with ice water every now and again, it was pretty wierd.

And finally, after going home and going straight to bed and sleeping for 20 hours, here I am.. good as new except for a few deep gouges in my shoulder.  The bandages come off after 72 hours, the steristrips (that hold the cuts closed) after 7-10 days, the sling after 1-2 monthes, and after another 2 monthes of physio I'll be perfect, good as I haven't been since I was 18.  Definitely an adventure worth having.