The Day Before

My wife, Andrea, keeps referring to my dinner on Wednesday night before my surgery as my ‘Last Supper’. I expand this concept to include everything: last breakfast, lunch, dinner, bowel movement, customer phone call, staff meeting etc.

I call around 2:30 to do my pre-surgery stuff with the hospital. They tell me that I am number one on the list (two others that day) and I am to be at the hospital at 6:00 am.

My partners and my management team are great. I appreciate their covering for me. From a timing stand point, it is okay for me to be out. However, we are in a rapid expansion mode, and a hiring frenzy (10 new employees this year, 5 in the past 45 days, taking us to 49 employees). And we are in the middle of some big projects. But, things are good, my management team is really running the day-to-day operation and I want to get this done with. I know that if I wait for the perfect time to have the surgery, it would never get done. I figure to be out for 11 days (7 workdays). I get my voice mail and email set up to indicate my long stay away. I figure by mid-week, I should be able to check them both. So, after my last breakfast and lunch, I finish up getting things put to bed at the office. I leave the office (the last leaving the office) by around 6:15 pm. My Last Supper is nice, with 14 of us around the table (my son Matthew was at camp). We have baked ham, au gratin potatoes and green beans (Pork - not what Jesus would have eaten at His last supper, but one of my favorite meals) I have a quiet evening, relax, try to stay calm (easier said then done). Lights out by 11:00 pm, need to be at the hospital at 6:00 am.

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