I’ve had surgery, everything from having my jaw wired back into place to removing a perforated and gangrenous appendix (the doctor’s first words to me after the surgery “When you’re in that much pain it’s ok to scream. It’s what lets us know you’re really sick). I crashed a car going 160km (99 mph for you non metric types) and remember thinking “that’s a very large pillar of concrete accelerating at my windshield which strongly suggests I’m about to-” My heart’s been so broken that I wonder if I’ll ever try again. At different times in my life a knife, a gun, and a pitbull have been waved in my face (ok, the pitbull was more menacing my knee caps, but it felt like my face). And I checked off the donor box on my license thereby dooming myself to be harvested for parts, minus my appendix, but you wouldn’t have wanted that anyway. Still, I don’t think I’ve lived through an experience like I did this morning. Two hours in an MRI is not for me. I did deal with it, but it took so much force of will to endure that hours later I’m still lost. The intensity of the experience was so strong that I could have cut steel with the thoughts in my mind. It felt like a near death experience looping over and over and over. If there’s ever a next time I want enough drugs to kill three rock & roll singers and a horse.