Scales of Injustice

Even though I had no intention of weighing myself just yet, the happy folks at the cancer center have a certain protocol every time I come in for treatment, and that includes not only testing my blood for a couple of dozen different things but also checking my temperature, blood pressure, pulse, oxygen saturation level, and—just for fun—my weight.

Today I shed my sneakers, sweatshirt, baseball cap, and cell phone, then stepped on the looks-like-a-high-tech-treadmill-but-isn't scale. My weight flashed at me in red LED figures. Red LED metric figures.

And if I were a wise woman, I'd have left it at that. Because while I can do the conversion in my head, it's not something I'd do reflexively—I'd have to think about it.

Which means that I could have elected not to think about it. I could have gotten off the scale, walked over to my La-Z-Boy-type recliner, popped my Tylenol and Benadryl, had my port accessed (where "accessed" is a euphemism for "hooked up to an IV line with a big needle jabbed through the skin"), watched the Herceptin start to flow, and then conked comfortably out for the duration.

But no.

I saw the little button marked "LBS" next to the one marked "KGS," and I pressed it.

And much bigger red LED figures flashed at me instead.

So now I know for sure that my diet-and-exercise plan has had no impact whatsoever on my residual flab.

Yet.