Today, the prelude to a larger, unwanted challenge.

Breakfast, as usual. Nights have been sleepless at times.

Ravine walk earlier than usual to get our two puppies out and exercised. And to remind ourselves, lest we need reminding that nature is there, as always, awaiting our return.

We left our house at eleven and returned at four-thirty. Would have been earlier getting home except for heavy traffic, stop-and-go because of a traffic accident on the 417.

The time in between? Difficult. We were in a quite crowded venue. The Ottawa Heart Institute.

For us, it was a routine that many have gone through, but an entirely new one for us, there, for that purpose.

Pre-admission for open-heart surgery. Where a skilled nurse interviewed us, checked vitals, explained matters even further, building upon what two weeks earlier the heart surgeon had described as he showed us videos of the heart he was set to operate on, explaining process and procedure and hypotheticals.

When she was almost finished with her questioning and note-taking, she introduced us to a doctor, who was assigned to this particular part of the process of familiarization and building of trust. And he went over some of the same items we'd already been introduced to, inviting questions of us. Instilling, as was his purpose, a degree of confidence.

If confidence can find a home within the mind of someone facing such radical and life-extending surgery.