{"id":1695,"date":"2026-01-03T10:03:57","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T19:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=1695"},"modified":"2026-01-03T10:03:57","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T19:03:57","slug":"of-floating-rocks-and-other-natural-phenomena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=1695","title":{"rendered":"Of floating rocks and other natural phenomena"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Younger Son and I were taking a walk by the harbor when he remarked on a boat with a concrete hull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI always wondered how those things float,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we mentioned that section of a floating (concrete) bridge that had its first life in the Seattle area, and that continues to float outside of Craig\u2019s harbor, acting as a breakwater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My husband and I drove across that bridge\u2019s replacement multiple times while hanging around Seattle for my cancer treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see, there\u2019s a tiny nodule in my lung, barely big enough for a biopsy, affectionately known as a neuro-endocrine tumor, that must come out. The surgeon, whom I have no reason not to trust, will cut a series of openings between my ribs, insert a busy little robot on a leash, and perform a pulmonary lobular resection, or some such thing. In a way it\u2019s like the breast lumpectomies (two of them) that I had in the fall: just take what\u2019s needed to (hopefully) eliminate the cancer, and leave the rest. One major difference is that I will have a considerably longer recovery time and will be grounded from flying for at least two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering that I fly somewhere every five minutes or so, that\u2019s a considerable hiatus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I\u2019m disappointed, pure and simple. I got through the breast cancer treatment (everything\u2019s done except for the long-term estrogen-blocker-horse-type-pills that I have to take for five years), I had plenty of bragging rights already, and I was pretty much clear to keep going to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The surgeon, whom I enjoy referring to as the Lung Dude, had told me we could \u201cwait\u201d until I was done with breast cancer treatment before worrying about my stupid lung. It turns out that what he meant by \u201cwaiting\u201d was a matter of a few months, while I had been hoping it would be more like years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not so. The time to act is now, before it gets into my brain or some such malicious mischief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sink of float? A huge chunk of concrete floats, while a tiny little bump on my lung will sink to the very bottom and take me with it. So I\u2019ll take whatever support I can find, from even the unlikeliest of sources, and me and the Lung Dude will take that crouching little monster right out of there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I choose to float.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Younger Son and I were taking a walk by the harbor when he remarked on a boat with a concrete hull. \u201cI always wondered how those things float,\u201d he said. Then we mentioned that section of a floating (concrete) bridge that had its first life in the Seattle area, and that continues to float outside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[644,645,646],"class_list":["post-1695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings-about-language-and-life","tag-cancer","tag-floating-bridges","tag-robot-surgery"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1697,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1695\/revisions\/1697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}