That’s the second time this week. Happy Friday everyone. Update. I’m doing great; back to normal. Normal for anyone who turns their torso like Frankenstein’s Monster and has a zipper made of staples up the back of their neck. But the neck zipper is pretty cool. Who wouldn’t want one? Maybe I can sell it as a fashion statement. I’m ready to modify the 7 pound in 7 days infomercial diet too. Upon further study, I find that when you quit taking the narcotics, the weight quits falling off. This necessitates two changes in the plan. First, we can skip the surgery and just go straight to the narcotics to accomplish our weight-loss goals. That will reduce the overall cost and discomfort considerably. Second, when we stop taking the narcotics the benefits go away, so we’ll have to continue the narcotics for the rest of our lives. That’s not totally a bad thing for me though. That means every customer I get will be a lifetime customer.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Not knowing ahead of time if we were going to still be in the hospital or not, we didn’t make any complicated plans for today. We just left it open. Barb and Henry were kind enough to show up at our door with a steaming hot full turkey Thanksgiving dinner to share with us. Here’s to good friends and family. They kind of merge together don’t they. Thanksgiving Day is our time for Christmas lights to go up. Judy dug out the electric tree and it is shining in our window tonight. I can almost feel the crisp night air and hear the crunch of snow underfoot, even though it’s still seventy-five degrees outside. Again, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Wednesday
Yesterday was Hump-Day, so this must be Friday. Happy Friday everybody. On a different note, I was just thinking about terror. Maybe 300 people get killed in a terrorist attack. It could be a bomb on a plane or bullets in the street. Hundreds of people who were going to a football match, theatre, or restaurant; just going about their daily business, all dead. What do we do in response? We shut down airports and subways; we close entire cities and countries for days at a time. We bomb the shit out of someone. We curtail our liberties, freedom of movement, and privacy. We secure our borders; reject ten thousand or a hundred thousand refugees from violence because there might be a terrorist among them. No matter the price, we’ll pay it. We’ll make everyone else help us pay it. We have to succeed 100% of the time. The terrorists only have to succeed once. They assemble a homemade bomb. We spend trillions. Does our response make any sense? I’m not saying not to respond. I don’t want terrorists to kill anyone anywhere, but the proportionality of our response strikes me. This year, 3,000 people will die in traffic accidents in the state of Texas. That’s just from one state in one year. Thousands of people who were going to a football match, theatre, or restaurant; just going about their daily business, all dead. Yawn. It doesn’t even make the news, much less dominate it for a week. It totally sucks for the people who get killed in traffic, and for their friends and family, but otherwise, is there outrage? Is there fear? Do we stop driving? Do we shut down the roads? Do we avoid gathering in groups? People will always die; some unnaturally. As long as it’s just a number and it’s familiar, we accept that. The terrorists are right. It’s the nature of the deaths that provokes the response they’re after. We’re sheltering in place against a threat that pales in contrast to many other daily threats we just accept.
Happy Tuesday
Hump-Day already. A short week. So, I’ve been thinking. Is there anyone out there who understands statistics? If I buy a ticket and have a one in one million chance of winning something, do I have twice as good a chance of winning if I buy two tickets? The apparent answer is yes, of course. Two chances are twice as good as one. But is that really true? If my first one in a million ticket doesn’t win, my second ticket also only has a one in a million chance of winning…. Does that mean my odds, my chance of winning, didn’t increase by buying the second ticket? Or can my chances be interpreted and explained either way by a talented statistician?
Day Five
The bandaging came off. Not much going on with the front of the neck; just an incision slightly off to one side, held together by steri-strips. The back of the neck is considerably more impressive, with metal staples all down the back of it like some reptilian Star Wars creature. The weight is falling off, same as last time. Before surgery I was at 165 pounds. I’m down to 158 so far, all the while eating anything I want. I’m writing the weight-loss infomercial in my head. “7 pounds in 7 days. Guaranteed.” (I’m actually losing a little faster than that, so I’ve got room to promise, then over-deliver.) This program is inconvenient and a little expensive, but if you’ve got good health insurance, they’ll cover it all. The weight loss will taper off soon and after another week or so, I’ll be able to guarantee that the weight will also come right back.