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I was 221 lbs so down 199 from my starting weight of 420.  I wanted to lose 210 lbs to be half the person I used to be, but after four three months of working downtown I had stabilized here and I thought this would be a good weight to make my new home.  Maybe surgery would remove 10 lbs of whatever and I would reach my target but this seemed unlikely.  So, with heavy heart, and a soon to be empty wallet, I called to schedule two procedures to get rid of an excess of me.  Time to shrink.

I called to schedule an initial pre-op visit:

*chatter about scheduling*

Receptionist: Everything will be fine, the doctor is quite skilled.
Me: I’m not worried about the doctor, I’m worried about the anesthesiologist.
Receptionist: Don’t say that.  Everything will be fine.
Me: What?  He’s five times more likely to kill me than the surgeon.
Receptionist: STOP SAYING THAT.
Me: Hey, I’m an actuary, I know these things.
Receptionist: Well, I’m sure the anesthesiologist is good too.  Have a nice day, actuary.

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My Roomba started doing what I will the “I DON’T GET IT!” dance whereby once turned on, it would rapidly nudge forward and backward while spinning and then shut itself down.  I assumed there was something wrapped around the wheels so I took apart the casings and found nothing.  Then, I de-haired every area I could get access to with still no success.  Finally, I googled the Roomba dance and found that it’s quite common and comes from the cliff detection beams, the system the Roomba uses to prevent itself from running off things, being dirty.  Dog hair was preventing the IR beam from being either sent or received and the Roomba was interpreting this as being surrounded by cliffs as if being stuck at the top of a phone pole.  I cleaned out these recesses and the Roomba emitted its tiny victory chime.  Looking around, the space around my chair was a disaster of dog hair, cat hair, dust, and carpet pieces that I had no interest in vacuuming so, I set the Roomba the task of cleaning up after itself which it did so cheerfully.  I wonder if this is the robotic equivalent of having to clean up the OR after one has surgery.

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I lost a day of work making sure my mom didn’t somehow injure herself during the period where she had an eye cap on after cataract surgery and laser vision correction.  I slept poorly as she has nothing besides a floor that can accommodate both my head and feet simultaneously while supine.  I endured missing a day of Internet access on April Fool’s Day, the IT equivalent of Holloween and New Years.  But it was all worth it.  The knowledge of helping my mother? No.   The two free nice meals? No.  The real joy was watching her repeatedly poker herself in the temples in an attempt to adjust her non-existent glasses.

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I lost a day of work making sure my mom didn’t somehow injure herself during the period where she had an eye cap on after cataract surgery and laser vision correction.  I slept poorly as she has nothing besides a floor that can accommodate both my head and feet simultaneously while supine.  I endured missing a day of Internet access on April Fool’s Day, the IT equivalent of Holloween and New Years.  But it was all worth it.  The knowledge of helping my mother? No.   The two free nice meals? No.  The real joy was watching her repeatedly poker herself in the temples in an attempt to adjust her non-existent glasses.