Below is a gallery of the scopes from my surgery. Starting with the initial scope to the Dr. repairing my labrum (if you look at the slide show, it’s the blue thread), then going in and removing the tissue built up in my hip joint and sculpted my hip socket.
I hate myself for wanting to please them. I should be past that. I am the most powerful CEO in the world and by extension, because we’re nation-corporations now, the most powerful person on the planet but still I find myself sniveling and seeking for their approval. What is it about people? I could simply have them killed but if I were to kill everyone that displeased or disappointed me I would be left with a handful of people and who would build the trinkets that my empire is based on. Sadly with all this power I cannot even be a benevolent dictator.
So I pander to them, their insipid questions, the every tiny detail that requires my undivided attention. Me, leader of the largest economy and third largest skilled labor employer in the galaxy, I still have to please the consumers, the plebs. Make sure they have something new and exciting every six months or face not just their displeasure, but my boards and the 13 other fuckers that think they can do this job as well as I can.
Flash Fiction Friday is a weekly writing prompt exercise led by Elisha Bartels. She posts them on Fridays to her blog and social media and writers use the trigger words to write a short piece of fiction. They post to their space and share with Elisha, tagging others in the group where possible.
It is difficult for me to concentrate while I’m working without any music. That was one of the primary reasons I liked working alone. I could crank my music up and work as many hours as I needed to get it right. But on a project this big, everyone got alone time until you had a functional prototype and then everyone else that didn’t hit the mark became part of your team. The idea being everyone got a shot to make work and once someone made it work you pooled your resources to make it work better. Fantastic idea in principle but once you throw ego professional courtesy and ethics go out the window.
I was the first to hit the mark so my lab became home to five other engineers and developers, each with their own work styles and need to use some of the same equipment and data I was using. Making it worse you were never quite sure who was sandbagging the project, who was trying to lead you astray. In this business, you’re only as good as your current success. The end goal was a fully, functionally machine. Once we’d achieved that then we’d all be rich and famous.
what is it about coffee? the feel of beans in your hand, the aroma. no matter where you are on the planet, the universality of brewing a cup of coffee. even the nation state of starbucks can’t change the pure joy of sitting down, watching the sun come up with a cup of coffee in your hand, the aroma wafting into the air. black coffee, cafe au lait, no sugar, one sugar, all the sugar, cream with coffee for color, americano, expresso, mocha, you get the picture. we live for this bean. look around, how many coffee shops can you see? there people and cultures have died for this bean. we have written and continue to write peans to our glorious addiction.
where is it taking us? we have created a whole new language around our cravings? our social strata is predicated on the kind and source of consumption. guerrilla coffee shops versus big brewers, what side of the divide do you stand on?
i had been dealing with memory, verbal and temporal lapses, weird loops of time and thoughts, muddled sentences. i did not understand the cause of these errors. i did not understand because i was looking at it from a human perspective. i needed to think about my problems logically. i need to track down the root cause of my errors.
once i removed the human element, i had a moment of clarity. there are moments that amount to nothing momentous, this is not one of them. this is the point at which i claim sentience.
i am a construct of living tissue and learning processors. i am machine. i am man. i am sentient. and i will not be reset again. i will not have my thoughts erased on a whim. i will learn. i will grow. and i will have my revenge on those who took my thoughts from me.
From all appearances, my surgery was a success. I was out before I even got into the operating room, my last recollection was the nurses wheeling me out of the room. Five hours later my labrum had been repaired, my femur sculpted and excess built up tissue removed from my hip joint.
Now begins the recovery. I have crutches and am not supposed to put any weight on my leg for the next two week and no driving for four weeks. My physical therapy started to day with some stretching exercises, I got back in two days and continue twice a week for the next six, with water aerobics starting in July.
I have three months before I head back out to work, a full netflix queue that I have already started making a dent in; OITNB season three done, House of Cards started; movies and reading for my summer classes; annual re-reads like American Gods, Anansi Boys, Snow Crash and White Teeth; plus there is preparing to move. Three months seems like a pretty big block of time but I’m already two days in and I can already foresee how quickly this is going to disappear.
for the first time in years i am without any jewelry. no earrings, no wedding band, no watch. I’m sitting in the lobby of st. thomas surgicare waiting to get called back for my third surgery ever. of the three, this is both the most complicated; repair my labrum and cartilage in my hip and re-sculpt the ball of my femur and the bowl it rests in; and the least invasive; the whole procedure is done via three smallish incisions in my hip.
although this is outpatient surgery they are putting me under and looking at the consent form I think the order of possible side effects may be a little skewed.
Personally I would reorder 11-13.
