Well, the day is finally here: Time to get my defibrillator replaced. Again.

These things only have a shelf life of about 7 years, and let’s face it, I generally give the poor things all I’ve got. I received the first device in 2003, the second in 2010, and now the newest member of the Ogg device family will be joining us on March 27, 2018. This will be my 15th consecutive year as a cyborg, or as I like to think of myself, CybOgg 3.0.

As this will be round 3, the anxiety isn't nearly as high as for the two previous procedures... plus, in light of everything else I'm facing, this honestly seems pretty minor. As a matter of fact, once I finished all of my busy-work projects last night (designed for maximum distraction), Derek didn’t even have to scrape me off the ceiling in order to go to bed.

I mean, sure, in a few hours a bunch of relative strangers are going to be looking at and touching my heart, and yeah, I’m going to wake up at some point this afternoon with “Frankenboob” to deal with and that's pretty gross. But last time was kind of funny.

For defib #2 (at the University of Colorado Hospital), I was sitting in the pre-op room with my Mom and sister Priscilla, chatting away (I get a little manic just prior to these things, and suddenly become a one-woman show), when the nurse came and got me from the pre-op room and told me I could keep my jeans on. I was like, whaaa? Yeah, she said, just throw on this hospital gown and leave your jeans on and walk down this hallway with me to the operating room.

Once we arrived, she patted her hand on the operating table and I jumped up, like a trained animal, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

That's when it got weird. She told me to lie down and she removed my hospital gown so that now I was just hanging out topless in a room enchantingly chilled to meat locker temperature while roughly 15 people mingled about, discussing their weekends with all the companionable chattiness of long-time coworkers on a Monday morning. Literally no one was even paying attention to me, so of course I was attempting to put on the air of the patient who has seen it all, as one does in these situations. As I was lying there all unassuming and casual-like, one of these masked people approached me and said something like “Okay, chief, you’re gonna need to pull your pants down to your knees.” And yes, I’m pretty sure she said “chief.”

Um, I’m sorry?

Nurse: “Yeah, I need to put these sticker paddles on your legs, so just pull your jeans down to your knees.”

Andrea: “Will I get to pull them back up?”

Nurse: “Nope! We’ll just leave them around your knees.”

Okay, so I don’t know about you guys, but I really didn’t fancy the idea of lying there unconscious with my knickers at my knees and so I just slipped them completely off and then wished I had worn prettier undies. But I thought I was going to be naked and OMG who even has to think about their undies when people are about to literally touch their hearts??

So now I’m just shivering there on the table, wearing nothing but perfunctory undies and a look of quiet desperation, and music is playing and everyone is just having a lovely morning and FINALLY my anesthesiologist arrives to end my torture. He quickly asks for a warm blanket (thankfully for me) and as I stare up at him I see, in horror, that he’s reeeeally handsome. (Side note: I prefer the medical professionals who see me in compromising positions to be very average in the looks department. I don’t know why, I’m just weird. Plus, I was single at the time and I was thinking that had I simply worn prettier undies, maybe I had a shot. See weird reference in the previous sentence. Also? When you’re single, 44, and you already have two cats, you really can’t afford to squander these types of opportunities.)

Finally I’m happily ensconced in a warmed blanket and gazing adoringly up at Dr. Easy-on-the-Eyes, when he realizes that I’m actually a bit chesty and begins to grapple with battening down my hatches with surgical tape. As I’m about to shriek for some sedation, if only to stop the cringing and blushing (mine and his), they hook up my IV and I start to relax ever so slightly. Then there’s a count back from 100…and I believe me and my sensible undies left the stage at approximately the count of 98.

I awoke from the surgery in the recovery room and literally walked out of the hospital on my own two feet 45 minutes later (pants on). It was July in Colorado, the evening was absolutely glorious, and the painkillers had me feeling groovy. Two days later, as I recall, I was up and at ‘em again (although mostly one-handed for about a month).

That was 7.5 years and a lot of cardiac mileage ago… so I’m not sure what today’s pre-op, operating room and recovery experience will be like. This is typically an outpatient procedure and they told me they don’t expect any complications, but the paperwork they sent to me with prep instructions said to be prepared for an overnight stay. We’re hoping I go home today, but I packed a bag just in case. I never miss an opportunity to overpack, you guys.

Things seem a bit more buttoned up with UW in terms of being taken into and out of rooms in gurneys and wheelchairs. I’m happily married now and I cannot imagine they’ll try to perform the procedure with my cargo pants around my knees… but just in case, I wore the prettiest undies I own. CybOgg 3.0 does come with some upgrades.