As I write this column, Former President Bill Clinton, who has been quite busy as of late between his speech at the recent Democratic National Convention and his tour to promote his book, My Life – is undergoing quadruple bypass heart surgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia Medical Center. Currently, there are hundreds of people camped outside of the hospital, which is located at 622 West 168th Street in Manhattan, and while I may not be in front of the hospital – President Clinton is certainly in my thoughts and prayers – as well as in my heart.

Having a heart condition myself – and having undergone heart surgery in the very same hospital, I can understand why President Clinton told Larry King in a live phone interview last Friday evening from his hospital bed that he was, “a little scared.” Heart surgery is probably the scariest of all surgeries to have. The doctors performing the surgery are operating on the body’s most vital organ – and can always encounter risks with such a delicate procedure.

The operation will entail removing a blood vessel from somewhere else in Clinton’s body – typically from his leg, although doctors sometimes take it from an arm or the stomach – and attaching it to his heart, detouring blood around his three known blockages. The surgery will be performed by 55-year-old Dr. Craig R. Smith, who heads Columbia Medical Center’s Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery and is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University Medical School. A former Fullback for the Williams College Football Team, Dr. Smith is a veteran of heart-bypass and transplant surgeries and is a pioneer in the use of tiny robots to perform heart surgery without opening patients’ chests.

Despite Dr. Smith’s training and expertise – I would be terrified if I was the person who had to take a scalpel in my hands and slice open the chest of a former President of the United States of America. While all heart surgeries are not without risks – the entire world is counting on Dr. Smith and his team to successfully operate on President Clinton and repair the damage to his ailing heart without any complications.

I remember when I had to undergo heart surgery at Columbia Presbyterian on January 7, 2003. The procedure, which was called a Catheter Ablation, involved inserting a thin tube, or catheter, through the blood vessels in my legs to my heart and using extreme heat which was delivered through the catheter to the diseased portions of my heart, thus destroying the damaged tissue. During the procedure, my heart went into Atrial Fibrillation – which means that my heartbeat exceeded 300 beats per minute and was beating irregularly – resulting in the doctors having to use the defibrillator to return my heart to a normal rhythm. I sincerely hope that during President Clinton’s surgery, which is much more complicated and invasive than mine – he comes through without incident – and makes a full and speedy recovery.

The good news is that when I logged onto Foxnews.com just now [1:56pm] to get additional information for this column, I saw that they just broke with news that President Clinton’s heart surgery was a complete success – Thank God.