DBS part 4

aka the soundtrack

When I arrived for the battery implant operation on 5/7, I was doing the check-in dance for the third time. Get there on time (early, if I am able), undress and put on the gown, get an IV started, wait for transport. For some reason, on this particular day, when the transport dude arrived and started pushing me along the passages that lead to the OR section, I had a mental impression of "Ride of the Valkyries" (which I mislabled "Flight of the Valkyries"). I thought of suggesting it, but did not speak up. At first. 

The transporter dropped me off in a holding area next door to the OR. It was staffed by one kind old nurse who came over to talk to me. We chatted amiably for a few minutes, after which she returned to her desk and got back to work. On a computer. "Are you allowed to play music?" I asked, half expecting to find it forbidden. Without missing a beat, she said that she had never tried. As I watched her minimize the hospital app that was running on her deskop computer, I saw a Microsoft Windows desktop, followed immediately by a web browser. Jackpot! "Go to youtube." Done. "Search for 'flight of the valkyries'". After a few repetitions of the search string, the preceding ad played. Boo for ads. She skipped it as soon as it let her, and then it was just the two us, in a big room, enjoying the sounds of Wagner. Heavenly! She joked that if someone happened by and chastised her, I had to take the blame--and for my part, I was completely willing to say that I put her up to it. I joked that this was the perfect song to lose consciousness to.

Her reply: "They can play music in the OR, you know."

I did *not* know that, but SCORE!

I didn't know how much time I had before they would be ready for me in the OR, but I also wanted to hear the '2001 A Space Odyssey' theme. As luck would have it, we were able to finish the Valkyries and play the much shorter 2001 theme. Just after the second song ended, the OR nurse arrived, and we were off.

The OR was just around the corner, so we were there almost immediately. There are, of course, many things to do and to discuss in the OR. After completing the bulk of them, I ventured a question as I faced the blank ceiling. "Do you guys play music in here?" A nurse answered in the affirmative, asking me what I wanted to hear. "I can't think of a better song to pass out to than 'Flight of the Valkyries'". I heard a few chuckles, and then the song started. I breathed deeply of the pure oxygen, and soon felt the anesthesia--arriving through that IV--start to take hold of me.

When I woke up, it was over. *They* were over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGU1P6lBW6Q - "Richard Wagner - Ride of The Valkyries"

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