Some takeaways from my recent hospitalization...

[alexpgp]

As I suggested in a friends-only post a couple of days ago, there really isn't a whole heck of a lot to elaborate on regarding my hospitalization, earlier this week, to remove a cancerous prostate. There are some points worth mentioning, however,

Just before the "how to take care of yourself" class that was set up for us newly "de-prostatized" patients—four of us, and I may well have been the oldest guy there, which gave me pause, considering why it was we were there—we were engaged in small talk, which included telling each other who our doctor was, and when I mentioned that Dr. C was my surgeon, the fellow sitting immediately to my right looked me right in the eye and asked, "Is your birthday December 12?"

I was a little taken aback by the question, as he had hit the date right on the nose, though I supposed it might have been possible for him to have overheard me during any of the seemingly myriad times I was asked for my name, birth date, and medical record number (to which I would invariably add, jokingly, "and that is all I am required to disclose to you under the terms of the Geneva Convention," which pretty much always got a laugh from whoever was asking). I answered the fellow in the affirmative and asked my own question: "Why do you ask?"

"Well," said my interlocutor, "I was Dr. C's afternoon patient, and the medical staff that was prepping me for surgery was amused that both you and I share the same birthday, although ten years apart."

What are the chances? (Having asked, I would expect the probability of picking two people at random and finding that they share the same birth month and day to be 1/366.)

* * *Deep-vein thrombosis countermeasures are quite aggressive, compared to my stay at St. Luke's in January. In addition to compression stockings, I slept with "sequential compression devices," which are designed to continuously massage different areas of the lower leg, and I was sent home with a prescription for a seven-week long series of injections.

As a postscript on the SCDs, as I fell asleep the first night after the operation, I could not help but dream that I was in some kind of strange version of Jurassic Park, and the raptors were gumming my calves—playing with their food, if you will, which made it a little harder to fall asleep. But I did eventually, and slept quite well, all things considered.

* * *I feel better today than yesterday, and yesterday was better than the day before. I look forward to continuing this trend, to as complete a recovery as I can muster.

Cheers...

Comments

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

Hope the healing goes quickly. Post-op dreams...are intense.

Same birth date is actually 1/24.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Well, that first night seems to have been it. I wasn't even able to revisit the Jurassic dream on the second night (I tried, just to see if I could coax any details from the images).

Beg to differ on the 1/24. If we assume just 365 outcomes for birthday possibilities (including leap years is a little too much), then the first person can be any of these, but the second must be that same outcome. The probability, then, is

365/365 * 1/365 = 1/365

I am, however, open to hearing an argument in favor of 1/24. :)

Cheers...

P.S. I think bandicoot may have hit the nail on the head regarding "24." I do recall an old probability question that goes "how many people do you need to have in a room for there to be a better than even probability of any two of them having the same birth date," and the surprising answer is, if memory serves, 24.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

It's a paradox. Of course. And so named The Birthday Paradox.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you came through alright. I had those weird squeezy leg things once at the hospital. I kind of liked them, and daydreamed about filching them for home massages.

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

I'd heard that at an average party, you'd expect to find at least two people with the same birth day and month, which sounds close to 1/24. It was in the context of a party bet ;)

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

:( None of this sounds fun, especially on top of what you've been dealing with this past year.

I hope the recovery goes well and speedily, though, and that you start feeling better very soon.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm in the first week of at least six, according to the docs. Things are going well, I think.

Cheers...