I finally got SMILE surgery done this Friday. It cost me $5,250 in total for both eyes. I had -0.50 in both eyes and now it’s 20/20 so basically, it means I won’t be stopped from flying NASA’s T38-A Jet’s in which astronaut candidates train. I’m fairly happy with it. Ma Papa paid for the whole amount in cash. Although they’re not my biological parents, they have shown me so much love and care that I might never be able to repay them in any currency. So much that my own biological father never did. Family is never always blood-related.
Papa picked me up from the center and brought me home to Secaucus. Stayed there for two days and came home today. The first few hours were really rough as my eyes were constantly tearing up and my nose was running profusely. But along with all this, another relationship derailed.
I had put in two weeks of sick leave at my workplace. While I was mentally, emotionally, and psychologically preparing for this the day before in the evening, I get a message saying I need to change the sick days to a few sick days and the rest to vacation days. It flew off my handle. I was deeply hurt and saddened by everything that happened to lead to my surgery.
- No one says anything when I work around the clock endlessly,
- No one says anything when I build stuff to help my team,
- No one says anything when I go above and beyond to fix and solve problems,
- No one says anything when I barely take 4 / 5 vacation days in a year,
- No one says anything when I never ask for overtime pay.
And a genuine reason for surgery and right before it I get this request. I’ve talked about this before that me thinking that organizations have a golden heart and high morals is very foolish of me. And time and time again, I’ve proven wrong for believing otherwise. On top of that, was told that if I need more time to recover, I should talk to HR for short-term disability. Also, was offered a recovery soup from Grubhub just in case. All this reminded me of this.
A recovery soup for low morals, I guess that’s justifiable and makes everything alright. To add a cherry on the top, I received a meeting invite for Monday right before I entered the operation theater. More than sure the person who sent it very well knew my state and condition I would be in for 2 weeks. So yeah, that happened. I’m fairly alone, I don’t have much family or someone to care for or to be with but I only hope that someday the people in question and their kids don’t go through remotely near of what I went through mentally and emotionally. But at the same time, it is these moments that make or break us. Who is going to attack you in your most vulnerable state and who will stand and support you?
I’ve been preoccupied lately, with questions of morality, good and evil, black and white, right and wrong, and who is genuinely on the side of the truth. And although these questions are never really simple to answer because philosophy, culture, past, differences, etc play a huge part in what we’ve evolved into the species today.
I’ve decided to open source everything I create from now on – on my Github page. I’m more than sure that the problems I solve and faced by numerous companies out there.