Live in the moment. That is what they say. You only get one life to life and you should live it to the fullest. They say that. I say it too.

Only it is not so easy to do. We have our routines, always doing the same things, seeing life in the same way. When it comes down to it, we forget what’s what. We are an exceptionally complacent lot.

Surgery is just the thing to break that mindset, getting stripped down, tubes stuck in, told to wait and wait and wait and wait.

That is a good time to think, waiting for the anesthetic to kick and then wear off, and then the painkillers to kick in and wear off, and then the steps out of bed, the first bowel movement, all of that, living in the moment, accepting that.

That’s when it clicks that this is it, nothing else, just this. This is this. And it’s good to remember that.