Ahhhm back! All's well. Nuthin' hurts to speak of. I'm not permitted
to raise my left arm above shoulder height for a month. That's OK, I
didn't know the answer anyway and I sure know better than to
volunteer. G

Everything went smoothly. The folks at Mercy Heart were terrific
(again).

I learned that the electrophysiologist (MD) quite typically defers
"programming" and testing of the device to a company rep while the doc
handles medical and surgical matters. There's also an
anasthesiologist present. They merely sedate the patient for the
procedure, then put him to sleep when they test it by inducing
fibrillation to see if the device corrects it. (It did.)

The rep was quite aware of my interests. He kidded me a bit about the
volume of email at his employer the past few days.