Unplanned Obsolescence

Whenever I buy a new car - which I’ll admit is slightly more often than most people, thank you - I get the extended warranty with it.  This covers most repair costs even if I keep the car for several years, which I usually don’t do but it’s nice to have anyway.  Now I’m wondering why the hell my parents didn’t get one for me when I was born.

It’s not as if they didn’t know what to expect... my gene pool on both sides could have used a lot more chlorine.  Both of my dad’s parents were gone before he reached 28 - first his mother from cancer at 46 then his father from a heart attack at 63, and my mother’s father had a fatal stroke at 54.  So you’d think they would have realized what they were bequeathing me.  

I certainly can’t hold them accountable for COVID, of course, but it seems as though this illness is the gift that just keeps on giving.

In addition to my lungs being in lousy shape, the virus and some of its treatments have a way of taking any physical weaknesses or propensities you might already have and making them worse.  For example, I’ve had irregular heartbeat on and off since college - no big deal and medication has always kept it under control.  Now, it seems, COVID has exacerbated it to the point where I need to have a cardiac ablation.  A short description is they go in through your arteries and send electrical waves to the heart in order to eliminate the abnormal tissue that’s causing the irregular beating.  Sort of like having your heart struck by lightning.  Or tased.  This is done in order to minimize or eliminate the chances of unpleasant things happening in your body, such as it ceasing to function.  It’s a relatively common and simple procedure (although, as somebody wise once said, “any procedure is simple until they’re doing it to you”) that’s generally performed on an outpatient basis.  So that’s coming up next Friday.  

Then there are the eyes.  When I went to the ophthalmologist last month because I thought I needed a prescription upgrade, we discovered I have cataracts.  One really bad.  It turns out that while both of my parents had them, they didn’t need surgery until they were each much older than me.  But, it turns out that one of the side effects of the steroid I’m taking to help my lungs perform is the formation of cataracts.  So those will be removed next month - three weeks apart - and replaced with lenses that are clear and might even help me see more clearly without glasses.  Those procedures I’m actually looking forward to. Somewhat.

None of these are major, I understand, but I can’t help shake the feeling that my body is turning into “Movie of the Week.”  Or at the very least some godawful reality show.  

Oh well... at least my parents also gave me a sense of humor.