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Mark & Laura

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Stoner [Mar. 27th, 2008|10:07 am]
[mood | aggravated]

Part II: In which I am punished for my optimism

Those of you who have been reading these entries as they were posted probably thought that the previous entry would be the last, since the halo ordeal was over and I had loads of working out and catching up with my life to do.  Yeah, me, too!  And that was true for exactly two weeks, at which point my subconscious got around to thinking, "Now that I've experienced just about the worst level of external pain imaginable (when the halo was screwed into my head), I wonder how that compares to the worst level of internal pain.  Hmm..."  So early one morning, with my conscious mind asleep at the wheel, floating like a butterfly through fields of dreams, Muhammad Ali sucker-punched me in the side.

"WTF?" sez I.  Couldn't he at least have waited until I'd toned my core to take a punch like that?  Rat bastard!  The pain didn't let up, so as soon as it was late enough I called my doctor, who said he couldn't see me until the next day (Unfortunate Delay Count = 1).  Luckily for me, my sister is a doctor (and a top-notch one at that, although not living nearby), so by the time I saw my doctor, he just confirmed what I already knew: kidney stones. :-(

My dad has a history of this, so I had some small idea of what to expect, but man, kidney stones go out of their way to exceed their reputation.   There are two approaches that doctors recommend, in order.
The concise, unfunny version: 1) Drink lots of fluids and keep the pain meds handy while trying to pass the stones naturally, or 2) insert a robot arm into your urethra, through your bladder, and up your ureters to find the stone(s) using the camera head, break them up using the laser mount, capture the pieces with the grabber attachment, and leave a stent in place.
The conciser, funnier version: 1) Down comes the rain and washes the spider out, or 2) they get all Star Wars up in your pee-hole (with complementary crazy straw).

So doc predictably says to tough it out for a few days and it'll probably work itself out.  Problem: Laura and I are heading out of town the next day (for a command performance at my Grandma's 90th birthday).  But I still have high-quality narcotic leftovers from my time as The Ugliest Angel, so I figured I'd be able to handle it, right?  Right?  So we fly to St. Louis (Unfortunate Delay Count = 2).  Oh, hey, y'know what I forgot?  You have to be able to swallow the pill and keep it down for a while in order to get the benefit.  The messed-up kidney seems to be on the same nerve cluster as the stomach, so the pain comes with a side of nausea, and I'm throwing up about half the water I'm drinking, which is inhibiting my chances of passing anything except out.

The pain comes in waves that last about an hour if unchecked (your mileage may vary).  Then the Gamemaster rolls 1d10 for how many hours of break I get before the next wave.  The Saturday night attack is the worst.  My guts are caught in a wringer.  I feel like John Hurt in Alien just before he gave birth.  (Aside: Women get kidney stones less often than men, but those who have had both kidney stones and a kid say that the stones are more painful.  Dr. Sis sez, "Yeah, and you can have an epidural if you're pregnant.")  The pain moves from the back of my right side, just under my ribcage, forward and down, and somehow my right nut gets caught in a vice, which really ought to have drawn a foul because c'mon, that's just blatant piling-on.  You don't boot a man in the family jewels when he's already down.

I probably should've headed for the local ER right then, but once you enter you can't leave until they say you're ready and I am required to be a Grandma's party Sunday noon.  So I just take it, like a stupid macho guy (UDC = 3), but do get rewarded by having a relatively pain-free Sunday, and Grandma is none the wiser about any physical problems I may have had recently.  Now I can't go to the ER because that might cause me to miss my flight home early Monday (UDC = 4).  We get back and the pain has mostly subsided.  Maybe I passed the stone?  Uh, no (UDC = 5).

Next day the pain has changed character.  Now it feels like I'm simultaneously really stuffed full of food (but off to the right side, not really where the stomach is) and ravenously starving ('cuz I've hardly eaten in many days).  So I call my doctor, who of course can't see me until the next day (UDC = 6) and then just hands me a referral to a nephrologist for the following day (UDC = 7), which seems like something he could've done for me over the phone a day earlier.  At this point, any medical professionals or former kidney stoners reading this are thinking "There's something wrong with that previous sentence," and they're right.  "Nephrologist" is from the Greek for "one who studies kidneys" so that seems okay to people with English degrees like me, but the medicos/stoners know that the word should've been "urologist" (Greek for "one who studies wee").  When I visit the nephro, she's just perplexed how any doctor out of medical school doesn't know that nephrology deals with diseases of the kidneys, while urology deals with blockages of the urinary tract, which is what I've got.  But she pitches in anyway and schedules me for a CT scan so we can all see what we're dealing with, but radiology can't do it till tomorrow (UDC = 8).

I drive myself to the scan, feeling like I'm gonna hurl any second.  Yeah, I should've had Laura drive me, but after how stressed and depressed she became over my previous physical problems, I'm trying not to involve her in this more than necessary.  I feel too exhausted and shaky to drive home right after, so I just go across the street to the nephrologist's office and tell them the scan is done.  They check it quick and tell me I have a 5mm stone lodged halfway down my ureter (the tube between your kidney and your bladder) with a huge swollen backup of water behind it.  "Get thee to an ER," she declares.  Finally I go to the ER, probably 8 days later than I should have.  Being the start of Easter weekend, no one's in the ER, so I get right in.  The scan's already done, so the attending urologist just takes a quick look, has me in surgery an hour later under general anaesthetic (the inflight movie was Fantastic Voyage), performs the aforementioned roboty-Asteroids-The Claw skillz, and I'm back home that evening.

Next: Stents Torture Every Nerve Throughout Stomach (STENTS)
(recursive: adj. see recursive)
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Aced it! [Feb. 27th, 2008|12:46 pm]
[mood | relieved]

YES!  For all of you following on a moment-by-moment basis, I did indeed get my halo removed this morning!  And there was great rejoicing!  Can I get a Hallelujah and an Amen?!

I just got out of a loooooong shower, and feel sooooo clean.  You people who've never taken 3 months off from showering and bathing yourself might have a difficult time really getting the impact of this, so I suggest you try it, y'know, like performance art, so you can really feel my words, thereby making me a better writer through your experiences. ;-)

Actually, I feel like I've been rubbed raw even though I was being gentle.  The physician's assistant warned me about this, telling me not to use any fancy exfoliants (what, like Agent Orange??), loofahs, or sugar or salt scrubs right away because the skin that's been under the faux lamb's wool vest for 3 months is all irritated and susceptible to contact dermatitis.  So just normal soap, hot hot water, and shampoo.  And for once I took the "Repeat" step on the shampoo instructions seriously (although somehow I avoided getting into an infinite loop...)

And NO to everything else: no problems, no complications, no feeling like my head is going to float away or fall off my shoulders, no prohibitions against rock-climbing or playing soccer (although he'd prefer it if I didn't take any hard shots to the head (yeah, me, too)), and still no driving while I'm in a hard collar.
Dr. Ultra-Conservative sez to wear the hard collar for 10 days to 2 weeks "or until your neck feels strong enough to move to the soft collar."  That last quote, along with him allowing me to remove the hard collar for showering and sleeping and such, basically means that it's up to me how long I wear this.

And now for some lounging, for both of us.  Me, basking in the glory of being able to look around my surroundings without difficulty, and Laura, trying to come to terms with the ordeal being over.  (No, I don't understand that, but that's what she says, and I'm sure those of you reading this who are more sensitive know what she means.)

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,
Mark
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CT = Cathexis Target [Feb. 26th, 2008|03:00 pm]
[mood | anxious]

Here's a lesson for any current halo-wearers reading this journal: schedule your halo-removal doctor appointment and the preceding CT scan well ahead of time.  *You* keep track of the 12 weeks; don't assume the doctor is.  I've been going to see the neurosurgeon every few weeks, and after he Torquemadas the screws in my head, he sends me over to Radiology to get a quickie X-ray, no forewarning needed.  However, CT scans are much more involved than X-rays and you can't just walk-in.  When I called to book the scan on Monday, they said the earliest opening was Thursday.  Oh, no!  My supposed halo-removal day is Wednesday, but it can't happen without the scan!  I begged and pleaded with the lady on the phone like I was C. Thomas Howell in "The Hitcher", and she finally gave in.  Whew....

Now there's less than 24 hours to go, and I just came back from getting my CT scan, so all decks are cleared and ready for Halo Off.

Side anecdote: I walk into the CT room, and the tech there sez, "Can you take that [halo] off, so I can get a good picture?"  Yeah, don't I wish.  Nice cart-horsing.  Apparently they don't see many of these over there.  No matter, the image came out great, according to the tech, although I couldn't make heads nor tails of it when I took a look.  We'll see what Doc Welsh has to say tomorrow morning...
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Wait for it.... [Feb. 19th, 2008|09:23 am]
[mood | i.e. sans LJDQ]

"Hi, my name is Mark, and I'm waiting for my life to restart."

When people know they're gonna die soon (see: Replicant), they live life to the full, if they can, but when you know you're gonna live (normally) again soon, you do the opposite (live life to the empty??).

We're now only 8 days away from the Big Day when I will supposedly get this annoying mechanical beast off me.  That sneaky little word "supposedly" is in there because no one really knows how well the healing inside my neck is going.  Sure, I've had an X-ray every 3 weeks for the last few months, but apparently you can't really see bone fusion on those.  They keep telling me those X-rays are "to check alignment" (you know, in case a lug nut fell off one side of the halo and I was no longer capable of rolling down the road straight; I try to tell them that I've been doing tons of somersaults in this thing and every one is Comaneci-good, but they don't seem to believe me).  Nope, we need a CT scan (what you non-injured used to call a "CAT scan", but they're no longer limited to axial pix (Interesting trivia bit: We can thank the Beatles for the existence of this technology)) to see a 3D view of the region in HD.  Now when you or I get involved in a project that usually takes about 3 months, we make a habit of doing some kind of test part way thru to see how it's going, 'cuz we don't wanna get to the "end" and find out that nothing has happened due to some kind of mishap at the start.  But nooooooooo, not when it comes to a neckbone fuse-a-thon.  They tell me this is for my own (physical) good (but it's certainly not for my own mental good, b'lieve dat!), and the reason they give is that CT scans are basically huge loads of X-rays, and dumping that much radiation into your body very often is an excellent way to increase your cancer risk.  So it's like they have a point.

Consequently, fear.  Or at least trepidation that the CT scan will show that I'm not healed and I'm not going to get rid of the halo (an acronym for Hated Anti-Lookin'round Object) any time soon.  I *believe* that I'm a good, fast healer (and have a bunch of evidence for that; my matching set of neck and hip scars are looking great), but ya never know.  It's a weird feeling to be yearning for a day you dread.

Anyway (my favorite transition word), it feels like my life is on hold.  I can see all these things around the house that were meant to be small chores done long ago, still sitting there, forlornly accusing me of laziness.  Even though I'm working, and the work is actually interesting at the moment (albeit stupid dig-a-hole-then-fill-it type of work caused by Microsoft being a pile of ass-hats), and I'm getting lots of reading done (there are 2618 well-written pages in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle), and watching loads of movies (in mid-January I watched 14 in 10 days), it *feels* like I'm doing nothing.  Perhaps that's because I've always been a pretty physical guy (as opposed to being a physical pretty guy, like Marky Mark Wahlberg), but I can't currently do my favorite activities (soccer and rock-climbing), and that also tends to keep me away from most of my friends.  I hardly ever leave the house, so it's like I'm not a part of your big world out there, with all its people and events that clearly *are* getting things done.

Stuck in here with me is Laura, which at first was a big help, but now (since she doesn't even have work to distract her, and has completed her studies, and is *not* an internationally-ranked slacker like me) she has succumbed to the fundamental oppressiveness of the situation and is getting less done than I am, yet not feeling relaxed at all (<- that right there was a massive understatement).  If anyone's life is more on-hold than mine, if anyone is waiting for the Big Day with more anticipation and more fear than me, it's her.

So my new theory is that the thing that drives the world forward is relationships.  If your relationships are stagnating, then so are you.  Go see "I Am Legend" and/or "The Omega Man" and notice that basically nothing (positive) happens until the lone man finally runs into another person.  What more proof of a philosophical theory could you need than that provided by a mass-market movie?  ;-)  As long as you avoid others (and I mean really relating to them, not just getting your groceries from them, or co-working next to them), you're not really part of the world.  In it, but not of it.

As the time gets shorter until my (hopeful) re-entry into the world, it gets harder to do the things that were keeping me connected, like inviting friends over, or even exercising (the little that I can).  It's so easy to just say, "This will be so much simpler in a week when I get rid of this halo, so I'll just put it off until then."  Earlier it was so far off that I thought about it about as much as I thought about retirement, but now it's like being at work after you've given your two-weeks notice.  I'm like a lame duck politician (insert pic of aquatic fowl that is both lame and in a halo here).  Or like a bad actor who's already been paid for the movie he's shooting.  What's my motivation?

I'm waiting to get back my body, waiting to get back my friends, and Laura and I are both waiting to get back our spouses.
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Halftime! [Jan. 21st, 2008|01:09 pm]
[mood | pensive]

If you look around at the various halo-wearers blogs on the web (for example, here's a good one from a female perspective), they generally have lots of entries at the beginning (how it happened, hospital horror stories, trying to adapt to life with this cyborg crap on), a few entries at the end (getting the thrice-damned thing off, post-cyborg rehab), but very little in the middle.  That's because the middle is just whiling away the hours while the slow, slow process of healing occurs imperceptibly inside your neck.  I'd be bored to tears right now if it wasn't for the fact that I'm an internationally-ranked slacker who has trouble fitting all my time-wasting activities into a mere 24 hours each day.  (Thanks to everyone who sent me DVDs, books, video games, and audiobooks for Christmas!)

I'm pretty much exactly halfway through the halo ordeal today, so I'm gonna buck the trend and post now about what it's like and how to deal with it, so that those who've inquired about how I'm doing (and a great big Thank You to those kind people) can find out, and so any other unfortunates that get into this situation can get informed.  And all in a handy Q&A format!

Q: Why is a cervical brace vest called a halo?
A: Pure marketing, obviously named by someone who never had to wear one.  A much more accurate name would be "crown of thorns".

Q: Is it heavy?
A: At first it feels like a bowling ball is strapped to the top of your head, maybe a 20-pounder.  You have to learn a special way to get up from lying down (roll onto side, use arms and core muscles).  After a few weeks, your body adjusts and you realize that it's just 7 pounds, arranged in as inconvenient a way as possible.

Q: What's most inconvenient?
A: It's a toss-up between no driving and no showers.

Q: Tell me about driving.
A: Please remember to phrase your question in the form of a question, kthx.  Car trips are a hassle since we neck-impaired are not allowed to drive, and even getting in and out of a normal car is surprisingly difficult.  This is (one of the reasons) why many halo-wearers don't return to work until the halo is removed.  (Since I work from home, writing software, I'm already back to work.)  Luckily Laura owns a convertible Mustang, so we can put the top down, I get in, then we put the top back up.

Q: Then what about showering?
A: You need to understand that a cervical halo is really a cast for your neck.  Since a regular cast in that position would choke you to death, they stopped using those a while back.  As anyone who has had any kind of regular cast knows, it gets all gross inside with dirt and dead skin and little crumbs of Doritos Cool Ranch chips, and you can't hose it out because then it would get all moldy and even grosser.  Not too bad if it's just your forearm or lower leg, but the halo vest covers everything from the bottom of the ribcage up.  You can sponge-bath from the waist down and on the arms, but everything else is difficult to get clean, especially the chest and back and hair.  I actually had the hospital staff shave my head the moment I saw they were serious about fitting me with the halo, and that made things a lot easier at first, but now my hair is long enough to be a cleaning headache.

Q: Are you in pain?
A: Actually, no.  Sure, getting the halo put on was the single most excruciating event in my life (and I've had a lot of varied injuries, so I know whereof I speak) (also, it was not the best time to learn that I'm apparently immune to morphine), but after the first week your body gives up complaining that you still have spikes driven into your skull.  I have loads of weapons-grade pain relievers, but I'm not using them because there is no pain day-to-day unless I do something stupid.

Q: What kinda stupid?
A: Well, the halo supports make your head about as wide as your shoulders, which is not something you're used to.  You serious backpackers out there know what I mean.  A few weeks back, I went around a corner in my house a bit quick and rammed one of the support bars into a door frame.  Man, that'll wake you up!

Q: What if someone else does something stupid?
A: Funny you should ask.  So the very first time that I leave my house for a non-doctor-mandated reason (Laura and I were going to walk around a park in the hills), we get in a car accident.  Do you think Fate is trying to tell me somethin'?  This lady just pulls out and nails us in the right rear corner (of our brand-new car, no less; we couldn't have been driving our old beater, noooooo).  You shoulda seen her face when she saw a guy wearing a cervical halo get out of the car she just hit.  Needless to say, I totally won the who's-at-fault argument before it could even start.
Although that hurt a bit, it turns out that the halo vest is the perfect protection against whiplash.  It's just physically impossible.  So next time you're about to get a bad case of whiplash, have yourself screwed into a cervical halo first.  A word to the wise, my friends...

Q: But other than those things, it's comfortable?
A: I did not say that!  As each day goes on, my upper back muscles start to tighten up, and I can't move enough to loosen them up.  This is why God invented masseuses, but the vest prevents them from operating effectively.  But in their infinite wisdoms the gods foresaw this problem and invented Valium.  Mmm, cozy, comfy Valium that lets me sleep at night.  I luvs it.

Q: I heard you have to sleep sitting up.  Is that true?
A: No.  I've heard that's more comfortable for some, but I sleep on my side on a regular bed.  It helps to have small pillows that I can fit in-between the support bars so that some of the weight of my head can be taken off the pins.

Q: So at this point, what's the hardest thing about the whole deal?
A: Although I can't imagine how hard this would be on someone living alone (because you need a lot of help to do ordinary daily chores, at least at the beginning), breaking my neck has been harder on my wife Laura than on me.  I think we've had more fights in the last month than in the previous 4 years of our marriage.  It's very stressful for her, just seeing me like this, and she's depressed a lot.  She's seeing a therapist to help her out, and I'm sure we'll be fine in a few months, just as I'm sure I'll be fine physically, which is why I'm not depressed.

So if you ever find yourself in a situation where someone else has to care for you, try to remember that it's hard on the caregiver, too.

Mark
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That tramp messed me up! [Dec. 13th, 2007|02:36 pm]
[mood | crappy]

We (Mark & Laura) really just use LJ as a means for playing the [info]ljdq but since I (Mark) now have loads of time on my hands, I thought I'd post what's going on here, and just point people to it when they ask, so that I don't have to re-live it more than necessary.
WARNING: This post is kinda graphic.  If you get queasy easy, I suggest skipping it.

On November 24th, 2007, I broke my neck .   :-(  And I don't mean that statement in some exaggerated or post-ironic way.  Literalism, it's all the rage.

A friend of mine was having his birthday party and we were jumping on trampolines at a place called Sky High Sports in Santa Clara, CA.  I don't really know why I was doing this because it has been a lifelong joke that trampolines are total deathtraps.  When I was a kid, the neighborhood went through a fad of each family getting a trampoline, kids swarming all over it for the first couple weeks until someone broke an arm or leg, then ignoring it until it got thrown out.  See the beginning of this Simpsons episode to see what I mean.

After jumping around like a loon for a few minutes, I actually listened to my stiff joints telling me that I was gonna snap a knee ligament if I kept it up for much longer, and I got out of the main area to explore the rest of Sky High.  They have a pit full of foam blocks that you can jump into.  "That looks fun and safe!" sez my brain.  "No flips or dives" sez the sign.  "Right, that makes sense" sez I.  Everybody's doing bellyflops and so do I.  It *is* fun!

On my 3rd jump I do something different.  Not sure what, but I sure didn't have my hands out in front of me to break my fall.  Maybe just bad luck, but my head misses the randomly-piled foam bits and continues thru to the concrete floor (only 3 feet down, it turns out).  The *unpadded* concrete floor.  So I head-butted it.  This is the first time in my life I've lost a head-butt battle (but to be fair to me, the Earth is a much larger opponent than I'm used to).  It's also the first time that the major pain is in the back of my neck instead of on my forehead.  (It will turn out that I split my C6 (cervical vertebra) right down the middle; clean, like with a hatchet.)

Being no stranger to injury, I quickly test my finger and toe movement.  (Yes, yes, right here is where I should've called for an ambulance.  Please do not bother calling in and telling me how stupid I am for not doing that.  That message has been received.)  Good to go with the twiddling fingers and twinkling toes, so I get up, carefully keeping my neck muscles rigid and laboriously climb out of the pit.  (Besides the initial impact,) this is where I could've severed my spinal cord.  Since that's *very* scary if you think about it much, let's pretend I didn't just say that, okay?  I go over to my friends and tell them the short version and then go sit down to rest.  Someone brings an ice pack for my neck.  After 5 minutes I decide it's not going to get better, so I get up, walk out, and drive home.  I'm gonna throw in a few exclamation points here so that you see that I understand that this is a totally whacked thing to do with a broken neck:   !!!!1!!11one!eleventy1!

A short while later, Laura drives me to the hospital ER, where I demand (and actually get) a neck brace immediately.  It's just my luck (by which I mean "very good"), that the top neurosurgeon in the area is on call that night: Dr. Joe Welsh.  He gives me the spinal news (2 ruptured discs and a small fracture on C7 as well as the major C6 damage).  X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs, I got the works.  I stay there for the next two weeks, completely flat in bed.  Really nice people work at El Camino Hospital.  I highly recommend them for your next life-threatening accident.  At first everyone thinks that I can get away with "only" a cervical halo for 3 months.  After the medieval torture device is screwed directly into my cranium (stop, go back, and re-read those last 5 words) by the nicest, most considerate torturers you'll ever meet, they do some more X-rays.  Uh-oh, my spinal cord shifted thru my C6 when they sat me up.  That means that Doc Welsh gets to use all his expensive training in the operating room.  Yay for him!

Turns out it's a good thing they opened me up.  The ruptured-disc spinal goo had been forced down into the major fracture, so it never would've healed on its own.  I might've worn this stupid halo for 3 months, gone back for a check-up, and been told that it didn't work at all.  So the doc threw away my C6, and replaced it with a titanium cage filled with my hip.  (Yeah! No, really!)  I believe this makes me 1/206th Wolverine.  Also in the Believe-It-Or-Not file, he did this all from the front, opening my throat and working between my carotid artery and esophagus.  When I questioned this approach, he responded, "Would you rather I go through your spinal cord to get to your spine?"  I guess it's a good thing that doctors (like Terminators) have detailed files on human anatomy.

So now I'm back home, walking around like Frankenstein, scaring the cat, annoying the wife, and avoiding the outside world.  It'll be early March 2008 before this halo comes off.  They're really inconvenient (here are just 2 facts: no driving, no showers) and it's quite the bummer, except when you go to RelativeLand and compare it to being paralyzed.  A few months of spine immobilization is to a quadraplegic as a medium straight is to 4-of-a-kind.  So I should just STFU with my whining.  At least I have a job where I work from home and plenty of health insurance (Short-Term Disability: 70% of the pay for 0% of the work.  What a deal!  You should try it!)

Trying to find those damn silver linings,
Mark
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