Mortal after all

I've got some surgery coming up real soon and I'm a little nervous about it. It is not really major surgery, but several minor ones rolled into one visit. With any luck, my lower legs will be fixed and I can enjoy walking again. Also, my left shoulder will be fixed and I can enjoy moving it again. If he (my surgeon) decides to do (repair the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) my left wrist , I should be able to play the guitar for longer than 30 minutes at a time with no pain.

All of the above should/will improve the quality of my life tremendously. Might even improve my mood.

What I'm nervous about is nothing specific. It is just a vague sense of unease about the whole affair. It's going to be done on an outpatient basis, but they will be putting me under anesthesia. So I'll be unable to breathe on my own for a while, but I will be unconscious and I think that's probably a good thing. Because he will be cutting into me in several different places and it's good that I won't be seeing or, more importantly, feeling that.

So what's to worry?

I worry that my chart might get mixed up with someone else's and maybe I'll lose a leg or something. I'm worried that maybe it won't work and I'll be even more messed up than I was before. I'm worried about not having any degree of control over myself and my immediate surroundings. I'm worried about basically being dead there on the table for a while and totally at the mercy of complete strangers. I know in my mind that none of the above is likely to happen or to be a bad thing, but still...

I've had surgery before with this same surgeon. I have no doubt but that he will do a fine job. He always has.

So I shouldn't worry. Right? Right. Yeah...

I'll let you know how it turns out after the 27th of this month.

Thoughts?

Pax,
Nelson

Mean people suck

I just read a reminder article from ZDNet news (picked up from from Reuters) about yet another malicious attack on the unsuspecting computer public. This one involves the Adobe Portable Document Format. You can read more about that here and here (and lots of other places, I'm sure), if you wish. You can get the latest version of Acrobat Reader® containing the update from Adobe.

Dammit.

Maybe I'm naive or something, but I sure do wish people would quit trying to mess up other people's computers. I don't understand the impulse that drives people to be malicious towards each other. I've tried to understand it, I really have. But I can't.

I know: "Why can't we all just get along?" (This quotation, by the way, is mistakenly attributed to Rodney King. However, what he really said, in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, was "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?" The closest I've found so far is from the movie Mars Attacks. Funny movie, but I digress.)

Can anyone explain to me why we're so damn mean to each other? I feel sad every time I think about it. If we were truly nice to each other, wouldn't this be a better world?

Any thoughts?