Just got back. This went far better than I expected; I was seriously expecting to languish under the institutional glow of fluorescent lighting (better for observation, I imagine) for another two days, for while the surgeon said the rupture was not so much a gnarly splatter as it was a civilised little poot and cleanup was a snap, still of course one can't be too sure, and quite rightly no one was making promises. But today my handlers authorised my diet from all-liquid to anything-goes, and when the surgeon's partner stopped by and saw me narfing on a Subway sandwich a visitor had brought me, with a dark you-cannot-be-entirely-human look on his face he said, "Yer outta here as of now." My smile broke the sound barrier.
I think my favorite moment was when I came out of anesthesia: Suddenly out of nothingness I saw a small crowd of women's faces capped and uniformed in blue, one up close and the rest back further, all staring and surrounding and coming at me like alien abductors and asking muffled questions in some language, and I was waving them away saying, "Where am I? Who are you people?"
Thanks for the kind thoughts and wishes, everyone. That's one thing I know for sure I won't ever have to do again.
