Impatient Idealist

I'm thinking the most important differences may be what the consequences of postponement are. For me it would have meant more hospital days and more IVs of morphine or stronger. For you it's definitely quite annoying and painful, but it's along the same lines as what you're already putting up with and tolerating, though it's clearly damaging your quality of life -- you need the surgery, and preferably very soon, but you could afford to let someone like me in my pre-surgery condition slip in before you. Of course there's gotta be a whole hierarchy of levels of urgency to all these sorts of things.