In about a week, me and part of my parathyroid will end our lifelong relationship and we will part ways. Its been on my mind lately, even if it is minor surgery. And evidently my subconscious has been having a field day with it.
Last night I had a horrible dream...I dreamt that my parathyoid knew I was coming for it. It fears excision, it doesn't want to be evicted from it's warm, moist home. It hates me now, and will do everything it can to prevent it. An ignomious death for a parathyroid gland, to be removed and placed in a pathology jar, perhaps to be used as a teaching aid.
So it's putting up a fight, even though it is at a distinct disadvantage. I am big and strong, the parathyroid is small and weak. I have arms and legs and a brain, while he is a cluster of hormone producing cells the size of a small pea. I can fashion a club, he lacks opposable thumbs.
But he's still putting up a fight.
I don' t blame him. But I have to downsize for my own health, and I'm cutting him from the payroll without severance or benefits of any kind. I can't even say I'll be outsourcing his position for cheap overseas labor.
I was told in church so long ago that we are reunited in heaven with all our loved ones after we die...assuming you pased the Hell gauntlet properly. I was even told that people who lost arms or legs would find them regrown and whole. (I was told that severed limbs would wait for you in heaven, and I instantly needed to know if peopl ewho were born without arms or legs would get new ones, and I was told yes...and I complained, as this seemed unfair, they would get essentially a free arm, and I wanted a free arm too, but I was pretty blasphemous at a young age.) If this is the case, then will my parathyroid be waiting for me in heaven too, to unite with me once again and give me high blood pressure and elevated calcium for all eternity? What if next week my parathyroid is removed, and the bit of soul attached to it goes straight to hell, and for some strange reason I convert and become Saved the next day, and then the rest of me dies? Will my parathyroid be trapped in hell, while I enjoy paradise? That hardly seems fair..my parathyroid played no role in any of my massively dinful decisions. How about the inverse, someone Mormon baptises my parathyroid into heaven but not me? Is that allowed?
This is, of course, why people never talk to me about theology. I'm an apostate nonbelieving heritical agnostic infidel. I only hope my parathyroid is as well. It would be most unfortunate for everything to turn out like a Jack Chick cartoon, and my parathyroid appears in the Book of Life, and I am cast into the lake of fire...and I will cry out "let my parathyroid dip his pea sized self into water, so that he may cool my tongue?"
Jason,
I got here via your great comment on the RantingProfs blog.
My wife also had a similar operation a couple of years ago. It's scary indeed, but heals fairly quickly; your body goes haywire for a little while, though, as the system settles into a new equilibrium.
If you get the opportunity, ensure you have a good seamster or seamstress--it makes all the difference when the wound heals because the scarring can be very noticeable.
Good luck.
When are you going to have surgery? Maybe you should answer your emails. Such carrying on. Where do you get such ideas anyway certainly not from me. I knew I should have carted you away with me one dark night and never brought you back.