“You’ve lost weight! Maybe ten pounds!”
“Yeah, well, so would you if you had surgery, ended up with a horrific case of thrush from the antibiotics so you couldn’t eat, then got fifty-million different opioids that killed your appetite. It’s a done deal.”
“No, really, you’re leaner and straighter.”
“You’d be straighter too if some guy cut you open and sawed out worn and crooked bones and replaced them with extra parts from the Tin Man. You’d be straighter.”
“Good job. Sometime tell me how you managed to reduce so fast!”
And this, folks, is how some (not all!!!) people actually do listen to each other. Cracks me up.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/06/28/rdp-28-reduce/
“Summer is the season of inferior sledding” - Inuit proverb 
I listen, in sympathy. My problem is that I do not seem to have got strighter, but still everything remains South.
I’ve had a lot of fun observing strangers as I’ve gone through this whole process.
It’s hard work, howeveryou do it!
Absolutely!
Tough way to lose ten pounds, great way to gain freedom and mobility. And way better for you than Tab. (which I was fond of in my youth)
I drank TAB too. My favorite lunch during the law firm days? Coffee yogurt, barbecue potato chips and Tab. 😀
I gave up soda a long while back, but my early doctor days lunch: vanilla yogurt, bran muffin, granny smith apple.
I forgot to mention the banana. I gave up soda when I moved here. Until then it was all caffeine free diet coke…
I discovered that the sweeteners just didn’t work for me, so away they went. Now I have about one real Coke a year.
I just quit liking it. No idea why.
Conversations about cancer are even MORE fun.
“I’ve got level 3 invasive breast cancer.”
“So you’re going to be fine?”
There’s listening and there is hearing. Not necessarily in a single package.
This is more about seeing and egoism than about listening. It’s happened a couple of times and it’s always funny (especially as the people knew I was having a hip replacement though the info probably never penetrated or they didn’t care much). And a hip replacement is not a life-threatening situation (if the doctor is any good).
I don’t think there’s anything funny about the cancer conversation, just people hoping for the best, having no idea what to say, not knowing what level 3 invasive breast cancer means. I wouldn’t know, honestly. My response would be different, I hope more intelligent and sensitive, but I can tell you it’s very difficult to know what to say not only because of the gravity of the problem but because of the personality and momentary mood of the person with cancer. My former father-in-law who died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma quit telling most people and those he did tell were those he knew could deal with it. I dealt with it mostly with silence and just being there to listen when he wanted to talk.
Hilarious. I remember Tab.
Hmm, I think we know some of the same people!
They are everewhere