A Little Procedure

A Little Procedure

Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 29, 2017, I am scheduled to enter the hospital to have stones removed from my bladder. It is four years, almost to the day, since I had this same procedure performed. The last time, all went swimmingly, the very large multiple stones were removed, and I had several days of recovery, during which I had to rely on a catheter for peeing into a bag. That was fun.

This time, they will perform the same procedure to remove the stones. But also, they plan to “shave” the enlarged prostate, which I am informed is more like coring an apple than it is “shaving”.

So, the entire dual procedure is not terribly complicated, although last time it required more time than anticipated, because the stones were quite large. But it is not complex like heart surgery is complex.

Still, any hospital based procedure, in which I am under a general anesthesia, poses some risk, and causes me to wonder about not awakening.  See, I am pushing on into serious age, being as I am in my 44^th 39^th year (you do the math). That alone gives one pause, on a routine basis. Partly, it is because I do not believe in the thing about boarding a bus that winds up at the pearly gates, where I am greeted by an official greeter and then introduced to God herself, before being assigned a cloud wherein I would meet and greet my relatives, et al.

I understand that all the pearly gates and heaven stuff is just a scam, what I have come to call a giant Ponzi scheme invented by the religious hoaxsters of the world to con you out of your money and to grant themselves some authority over your lives.  Everyone is terrified of dying. So the Ponzi master focused on that one fear and invented a whole tale about how you don’t really die; you just enter a new life stage . . . an after-death life, that goes on forever. Life, it turns out, is just a mildly unpleasant foretaste of your wonderful heavenly life.

But, no, that isn’t real. What actually happens at the death thing is anyone’s guess, since no one ever comes back to deliver reality lectures (no, your priest doesn’t actually know any more than you do. He just pretends to know).  The most likely outcome is that your brain simply stops functioning and you no longer are you. You stop being aware. And you don’t know it, because you no longer have a functional brain.  And nothing follows. Nothing.

So, that’s it. You’re done. And whether your friends and relations mourn you or share a cheering drink to celebrate your departure, will depend on the life you led, and whether you were reasonably kind, or a schmuck like President Stupidhead.

But, in any case, it won’t matter because you won’t know one way or another.  See, at that point, it is over. Got it?

So, that’s where my brain goes, every now and again, but especially if I am going to encounter general anesthesia. Who knows how my body will react? Good, I hope, because I have worked, with my lovely wife’s help, to maintain a reasonable body and mind. So, my overall health is good, and I expect I will come through this procedure as successfully as I did the last one. But I am four years older.

So, we will see. Hopefully, I will awaken sometime Tuesday after the procedure to be told all is well and I will be going home the next day.  We will see . . . we will see . . .

I do understand that not everyone follows this same thinking process. I really do.

So, here I come world . . . into your grip. Treat me kindly please.