At this point I still Haven’t been contacted by the surgeon who will handle my case, so I don’t know when I get cut open. I only know I will get cut open and that ugly hunk of fat removed at some time in the near future. What happens after that depends on the report from the lab. If “atypical” means “funny looking but otherwise normal” that’s where the story ends. I get sewed up and go on about my business. If “atypical” means something else then other things will happen while I’m still out on the table. Exactly what depends on what they find at the lab, but having communicated with other people who have had a similar experience the most likely situation is if “atypical” means “cancer” they will biopsy the lymph nodes in my right armpit (the closest to the lump) to see if the cancer has spread. If that comes back clean then chemo to get anything that escaped during the surgery. If there are cancer cells in the lymph nodes then things get complicated… And I won’t know the options for that until my consult with the surgeon.
So, when faced with possible mortality, what do I do? Well, I go back to working on the Sprint T’s frame design, because there are things I still don’t like about previous iterations. Specifically I didn’t like the overlap between the engine compartment frame rails and the extension of the passenger compartment frame rails. Also I looked up the dimensions of the rear axle I wanted to use and there was no way it would fit in any of the previous versions of the frame without cutting a divot out of the middle of the gas tank or dividing the gas tank into two parts with the protruding part of the rear axle between them. So this version would have to be longer behind the axle centerline than any of the previous versions by a large chunk of frame rail. Now as to why this was important, the passenger compartment frame rails are going to be 0.120″ wall 1.5″ square tubing, while the engine compartment and the trunk/fuel cell compartments are only 0.060″ wall so they are lighter and more importantly will crumple in a wreck and not transfer impact to the passenger compartment. Well in previous versions the 0.120″ wall overlapped the engine compartment frame rails by more than a foot (305mm) which will seriously compromise the crumple of the engine compartment. The desired failure mode is for the engine compartment is for the upper frame rail to buckle and the bottom frame rail to fold up at the firewall and direct the mass of the engine and transmission under the passenger compartment, away from the driver and passenger.
And while I’m talking about impending mortality, I’m reminded that I have been through this death thing once already. There are even categories of how dead you were before you get revived, or in my case reboot. Book 16: Big, Dumb Objects Part I I think I was just at the threshold of “Laz-1”. I didn’t get shot, the projectile was more about massive blunt force trauma, than penetration. But I still died for two minutes before “rebooting” myself.
And I have run out of things to say so I will stop writing.
PSA, Opus the unkillable badass Poet
Witch on a Bicycle 