A trip to the endodontist is assured to arouse the soporific and analgesic state of mind. It is an ephemeral presence but nonetheless palpable. Considering I was the chauffeur for this unwitting alignment, my contribution was far from clinical. I too was recovering from my own intensive surgery just 24 hours ago. What did me in wasn’t today’s operative pursuit (for which naturally I was a mere bystander). Rather it was the dreamy acquaintance with the shoreline of the river as it bends its way through the county; and the classical crossover music piped through my Bose headphones.

As I sit at my desk, sipping my black Nespresso coffee and contemplate the fields and nearby river shoreline, I slowly reassemble the day which preceded. There have been an uncommon number of third parties involved. The superfluity was the product of bad planning. We hadn’t anticipated upon our return to Canada on April 27th last that the exotic strains of medical and dental service would proliferate. Each of us was pulled in the opposite direction by the underlying circumference of the episodes (the hospitals and surgeries in Smiths Falls and downtown Ottawa). Somewhere in the mixture of today’s and yesterday’s events was the payment of other professional services. But the precipice is yet unclear, so sudden and varied were the circumstances.

What however renders a portion of clarity to the amplitude of our involvement is a glance upon our corporate calendar. We are in the habit of maintaining on the calendar our daily scheduled events as a record of them.  More than once we’ve discovered the list is helpful to recall what exactly transpired. And the expediency of evolution explains the dissolving images before and after. It is a welcome conclusion all ’round that we’ve each accompished the preliminary state of surgery. We now await the collapse of the bruises and the hopeful reconstruction of the perfected subordinates.

Incrementally the narcotic drugs have begun to dwindle. It is a familiar turbulence that collaterally affects the mind and body. The physicians, as witnesses to these daily assaults, recognize the breadth of division between  the world real and imagined.