Gallows Humor

I am currently days away from my surgery. I’ve started drinking this shake called Advanced Therapy twice a day to assist in my recovery. Check. I’m doing breathing exercises 2-3 times daily on an incentive spirometer device to help me ward off pneumonia after the surgery. Check. I’ve got Gatorade I’m supposed to drink Wednesday night before the surgery. Check. I’ve been doing sets of ten deep squats 2-3 times daily to strengthen my hips and prevent a fall in the hospital. Check.

My brain is trying to cope with the coming surgery. It does this in the extremely helpful manner of keeping me awake at night and giving me various dark scenarios of what comes after the surgery. Hoo boy! Oh, so helpful.

It has also exacerbated my tendency toward gallows humor. I got my sense of humor from Paw. It’s been honed by 12 years of part-time military experience, 29 years of education, and 60 years of lifetime experience. Gallows humor is another name for dark humor, which is like food in a Communist country. Not everyone gets it.

Psychologists would describe it as a coping mechanism, and they’re probably right. A Satterly would rather crack a joke than deal with the trauma at hand. I was looking at buying a Boston Scally Cap the other day. It’s red, white, and blue and will look sharp on my melon. But, as I told Robin, I’ll wait until after the surgery to save her from making a possible return. As usual, Robin was less than amused at my observation.

Now, the surgeon gave me a less than 2% chance of shuffling off this mortal coil, but given the severity of the surgery, c’mon! They are going to cut a hole in my breastbone, hook me up to a machine to act as my heart, stop my heart, cut out my damaged aorta, replace it with a fabric aorta, possibly replace my aortic heart valve, and sew/staple/glue everything back up. What could possibly go wrong?

I’m being a big boy about it, and I have plans for after the surgery, but I have noticed my meme-mining activities have increased over the past weeks, usually “dank” memes. These memes use warped pictures, sometimes paired with “Dad Jokes“. Perfect!

So the chances are really good that my excellent surgeons will work their wondrous magic. I’ll wake up in the ICU, doped up pretty well for the pain. I’ll do what they tell me to do and soldier on. Satterlys don’t quit. Did Tom Satterly quit in the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993? Hell no! Did my sister quit when she divorced her husband and faced life on her own? Hell no! Will I enjoy my recovery after the magic is done in the surgery room? Hell no!

But I’m not doing this for enjoyment; I’m getting a very defective part of me that threatens to kill me fixed. That’s a good thing. Seeing my grandsons grow up is a good thing. Spending more time with Robin is a great thing. Life is precious, and the Good Lord will call men His own good time.

If He does, my family will split my gear. It’s an Infantry thing. See you next week!