The Tuesday Afternoon Thriller

Well, well, well... Not your average day in the office. 
I finally got to see the robot in action. It's a project I have been working on for over 18 months. It involved many rounds of negotiations, some haggling, some begging, some barely veiled threats, some not-vailed-at-all threats, some more begging, some more negotiations, some more begging and the reaching of an agreement. 
Today my boss and I got invited to see the result of so much careful planning (and parting with a substantial amount of money). 
I had seen a demonstration robot a few months ago and got to sit a the console and play at grabbing and pulling things in a simulation abdomen. 
To see a live lobectomy was a different story altogether. 
It was absolutely fascinating. My boss and I alternated at the second console and you get to see the actual procedure, in real time, in 3 D. In a weirdly immersive manner. And it was absolutely fascinating and thrilling. And my boss left after 2.5 hours because he had to go to a meeting that couldn't be rescheduled but I opted to stay till the end (you do not leave a Tarantino movie 25 minutes before the end). And I had the second console to myself. But four minutes after my boss left it suddenly stopped being fascinating and thrilling. It got plain scary. The half hour that followed was possibly one of the tensest moments I have experienced. Still transfixed by what was happening, not daring to move, utter a sound or even breathe. Things eventually got back under control, thank god. With everything back on track the lobectomy was brought to a successful conclusion. 
I was absolutely drained as a spectator at the end of the 4 hour procedure. I can't begin to imagine how the surgeon and his large team must have felt. 
After changing back into my civvies and grabbing a Dublin bike to cycle to the train station, things felt slightly disconnected and I had to remind myself that I really had to pay attention, that it was really life, with real streets, and real buses than can flatten you. 
After spending several hours immersed into someone's thorax, real life felt slightly unreal.