My Lucky Number

Everyone has one.  Whether it is the day of your birthday, your favorite athletes number, a combination of numbers or your number from sports.  Everyone's number holds a special meaning to them.  Mine is one that I'm sure I share with many other people.  It wasn't until I was texting with Lauren while on dialysis today that I realized the significance of my lucky number and how it plays into the next month or so of my life.

Since we have now entered another month since I was given the date for my surgery, the number of days until the big day has gotten smaller and smaller. Maybe it was a mistake to start the countdown because it might make the time drag on, but Im fine with it either way.  Just like the oddities of the number itself, today is special in its own way.  Today is the only day in which the date of the surgery and the number of days until the surgery are the same. As of this morning there are 23 days until I have surgery on the 23rd of August.

I'm sure many of you reading this have one idea that comes to mind when that number is mentioned. One of my fondest memories is getting home from church on a Sunday during the winter and watching the NBC double or triple header of NBA games, all the while stuffing my face and sneaking in a nap.  More often than not the Chicago Bulls lead by MJ would fill the spot for one of those games.  For as long as I can remember my favorite and lucky number has been 23.  I even wore the number for 4 years of hoop in high school.

With the number of days until surgery getting smaller, the number of dialysis treatments I have left gets smaller too.  During my session today, one of the nurses told me that today will be the last time that I will see her before my surgery.  When I told this to Lauren, she pointed out that means that the big day is getting ever closer.  I don't think she (Lauren) realized at the time the idea that she had planted in my head for my next post.  I also don't think I realized until today that I am having surgery on my lucky number day.  As I have mentioned in other posts, I believe heavily in fate, and that everything happens for a reason.  Holding on to these beliefs has helped me get through the last 3 years of waiting for this day to happen.

The month of July wizzed bye so where is hoping the month of August does the same.

Fun Number 23 Facts

- 23 is one of the most commonly cited prime numbers - a number that can only be divided by itself and one. Twenty three is the lowest prime that consists of consecutive digits. Primes have been described as the "atoms" of mathematics - the building blocks of the world of numbers. An American businessman has put up a US$1m (£500,000) prize for the first mathematician to find a pattern in primes - a problem known as the Riemann hypothesis.

- More freaky numerical coincidences: Charles Darwin's Origin of Species was published in 1859 - 1+8+5+9 = 23. Two divided by three makes 0.666 recurring (allegedly - actually it makes 0.6666666667). The Hiroshima bomb was dropped at 8.15am - 8+15= 23.

- The first morse code transmission - "What hath God wrought?" - was from the Bible passage Numbers 23:23. In telegraphers code 23 means "break the line".

- "W" is the 23rd letter of the Latin alphabet. It has two points down and three points up.

- The average human physical biorhythm is 23 days.