Her heart's not on her sleeve, but just under it.

Laura and I had no trouble at all finding the right room in the long quiet corridor of plain doors, thanks to tastefully understated signs.

Ambulatory Surgery.

I looked at Laura as we approached the door. She knew what was coming.

"You'd think they'd want people to hold still while they operate on them, not to have them walking around."

"Oh, I don't know. Doctors are often Type A personalities. They like challenges."

I opened the door and followed her in.

It was a pleasant enough waiting room with the requisite elements. There were the usual semi-comfortable chairs along the walls, the carefully spaced relatives and friends using their cell phones, novels, and knitting to do their best to distract themselves. This one was well designed, with some of the creature comforts of a living room. A large flatscreen flashed images and deep muted voices, and subliminal overtones of coffee mixed with quiet conversations.

Laura's procedure was to put in a funnel to her heart.

The toxins they will be feeding into her body by IV will need to go directly into the superior vena cava. Like the mouth of a funnel, the injection port itself is a 1.5 cm target that will reside directly under the skin on the inside of her right arm. From there, the tube from the port enters a major arm vein and travels all the way to where it empties outside her heart.

Other than starting late, the surgery went as expected, and besides a nice bruise and a little leakage and pain at the incision, we moved on to a spectacular "Lose the Locks" party.

Next: About Losing the Locks...