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"Yeah, it was a pretty close shave there," I said with relief, "but I didn't die and that's awesome in my book."

"Oh, yes," mused Granddad rather casually, "I'm supposed to be next anyway."

I thought about that comment for a moment. While facing my own mortality was a fairly new concept, my grandfather had been facing that end of life for years. As a former fireman for one of the busiest fire departments in the world, he had rolled the bones with the Reaper on at least more than one occasion.

"You know, I'll admit something, Pop. I was more scared than I'd ever been going into that. I knew it was serious but not how serious. Guy told me later that I was on very thin ice there from having that sucker explode on me. Days, maybe weeks if I was lucky.

I suppose it freaked me out because I'd never really faced my own possible death like that before. Maybe you know way more about that since you were a fireman and faced life and death more than a few times on the job."

My granddad grunted, "Well, yeah, I suppose, but never as bad as that. Any situation on the department had some sort of risk to it, but it wasn't like getting sick and having to go into surgery. That's worse, I think. Grandson isn't supposed to go before the grandfather."

I felt strange after hearing that. He was the second person who caught me off guard at this level of discussion that I've had with a small handful of people.

I feel completely humbled in this case is because he faced death in the line of duty. I faced death because I had too many cheeseburgers and let a lot of stupid crap stress me out.

He fought back death with a firehose in his hand. I fought back death by not being stubborn and checking into the ER.

On the other hand, I see his point.

A firefighter has a lot of control in emergency situations. How much hose do we need? Should I go in through the front door or back? Do we ventilate the roof here or further to the right?

When you go for surgery, it all runs pretty much without your input. All you have to do is wait and enjoy the medication while the doctors and nurses do the rest.

The funniest thing about it was it went exactly as my eldest brother said it would when we spoke before I was put under. I remember being wheeled in, put on the table and the surgeon saying, "alright, Robert, we're going to..."

Then, nothing.

I remember always thinking that when one is under anesthesia, one would possibly dream. Possibly about that hot nurse who took care of me in the ER, perhaps. At the very least I hoped I would dream of a bright sunny day on the Santa Monica pier.

Next thing I recall was waking up, much like my 1980 Buick Century used to. *wwwwwWWWhhhHHhhhHHHHIiiiIIiiiiRRRRRRRRR!"

I floated in and out for awhile, my number one thought being "thirsty." I felt like Heywood Floyd in 2010, waking up from hibernation while people fussed over me, checking vitals, asking me general questions.

I half expected to see a 1980's graphic rendition of Europa on one of the monitors with Jupiter in the background.

My first really lucid thought I remember having was, "there must be some kind of way out of here..."

Battlestar Galactica, FTW again...