#done that

Thank you!

It was a lot of fun, that. (And pitching for it was the scariest thing I’d ever done that wasn’t brain surgery.) 😏

(but also, per @princesscolumbia:)

...what an odd thing to say...

…Only if you haven’t been a nurse who’s scrubbed in on brain surgery. Which I have been, and did. (Brains are kinda shockingly pink-and-white, if anybody was curious…)

I keep having to remind myself that sometimes people think writers just come out of nowhere, without having had previous—or sometimes very current—careers. Most of us have had. (Otherwise the wisdom about “Don’t Give Up Your Day Job” wouldn’t make much sense.) I passed my State Boards as a registered nurse in New York state in 1974; and as part of that qualification, some of my experience naturally involved a medical-surgical unit including “circulating”* during and scrubbing in on various kinds of surgery. Mine, as it happened, included brain surgery. Which, since my qualification was in psychiatric nursing, was unexpectedly apropos.

The brain surgery was actually a lot calmer than (ten-plus years later) unexpectedly pitching “Where No One Has Gone Before” to Gene Roddenberry, as I knew beforehand what was going to happen in the surgical suite. But at least in Gene’s office I didn’t have to hand anybody any dropped instruments, or worry about sterile field discipline. …Anyway, if anybody had dropped anything, Bob Justman (who was also there, gods rest his good soul) would probably have picked it up. Producers can be so tidy… :)

…Hope this helps resolve any confusion.