Tag: injury Posts

Nearly one year ago today, four guys that I had never met before decided it would be a good idea to put my face through the plate glass window of a 7-11. Prior to that one moment in time, now forever etched into my memory, I was upstairs at the Railway Club in Vancouver, enjoying a few beers with some friends in celebration of their wedding earlier that night. Upon exiting the building, somewhere between catching a cab and eating a bag of nachos, I overheard these four guys harassing a bunch of girls just a few feet away from me. People have told me after the fact that perhaps I should have just kept my mouth shut, hailed a cab, and gone home. But instead, because I thought it was the right thing to do, I suggested to the group that perhaps everyone had had too much to drink, […]

As I said in my last entry, I am now at home recoupering from what is hopefully my last surgery to correct the damage from November. I’ll go through a quick walk through of yesterday. I woke up around 10am and basically just tried to kill some time until I was supposed to be at the hospital. I was originally going to take a cab down there at around 12:30pm, but it was such a nice day out that I decided to just walk the whole distance myself. Surprisingly, it only took me a half hour. Once I got there, everyone was immediately friendly. Even though I had to answer a pile more questions that I had already answered before, it didn’t really bother me as things were finally about to be finished. Everyone was on time thankfully, and at 1:15pm I found myself getting changed in the Jim Patterson […]

I’m not up to writing a full blog entry, but just wanted to let everyone know I made it home and that I’m recovering. The whole hospital procedure was far harder on me this time than last time, and I still feel really shaky. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll feel alot better.

Today I headed out to The University of British Columbia for an appointment with Dr. Kevin Bush, one of the best plastic surgeons (who specializes in cranial-facial reconstruction) in the province. I had some time to kill, so I spent 30 minutes just walking around enjoying the sunshine, reminiscing about the nearly eight years I spent wandering around the campus. It’s really weird being on campus in the summer. Most students don’t really have a chance to see the rose garden in full bloom, or enjoy campus life when the weather is nice out (since the school year coincides with the bad weather seasons in Vancouver). I had the opportunity to work on campus one summer, and it was really refreshing being there when the pace was more relaxed, and the weather nice and sunny. At around 10:40, I made my way down to the UBC Hospital for my appointment. […]

As of this moment, I am officially “on call” for my next surgery at St. Paul’s hospital. I was hoping that I would have gotten the call on Sunday night for a Monday morning surgery (I just want it over with), but unfortunately I still haven’t had the call yet. I won’t be able to eat for twelve hours prior, so I’m pretty much guaranteed to get at least that much notice. It would be nice if they could give more notice than that, but apparently the hospitals are rather busy, and it’s difficult to book them in advance. Photo by jekemp on Flickr (click photo to view) My dad has a change of clothes in his truck waiting for the moment I know. I’m not really supposed to be alone for the first day or so just in case something goes wrong, so my dad is going to come […]

Ever since my injury in November, I have spent quite a bit of time in hospitals, doctor’s offices, and medical clinics. Part of those visits usually involves some interaction with medical students. And while I’m certain that there really are good medical students out there who are passionate about helping people and eager to learn more in their field, almost every single medical student I’ve encountered has been both arrogant and misinformed, a deadly combination when you’re trying to help people who are sick or have undergone significant trauma. My first encounter came sometime around November 8th of last year at St. Paul’s hospital with a young medical student who was looking over my CT scan. Originally I was told I was to go for surgery within the mandatory two week period (since after that point, the bones start healing wrong and the surgery is more involved). However this medical […]

I met with my plastic surgeon this morning, and as I thought, we’re going to go ahead and do another surgery. The apparent source of my problem seems to be that the ledge that was supporting the implant ended up not being very stable, and the implant has collapsed slightly along with my eye. Also, there is slight herniation of some of orbital contents into my sinus near the back, which is most likely the source of my double vision. The good news is that it should be nearly 100% fixable. They are going to put in another larger implant, and probably secure it using microscrews (sounds so exciting doesn’t it) so that it doesn’t drift. Since one of the only things I’ve been looking forward to for a while is my 30th birthday, I’ve decided to postpone the surgery until after April 7th. I don’t really want to risk […]

I just got back from St Paul’s hospital where I picked up the data from my second CT scan. For those people living in a cave, last November some guys tooled me pretty good outside a bar and ended up fracturing several bones in my face, including the orbital floor of my left eye. What this basically meant is that there was little to no support for my left eyeball in my left socket. That was November 4th. On November 22, I went in for plastic surgery to correct the defect under my eye and put my eye back to its proper position. They do this by sticking in a plastic sheet that is meant to hold the eye up while the bone slowly regrows under the sheet. After the surgery everything looked pretty good, but at around the one week mark, my eye started looking more like it did […]

I had an appointment this morning with an eye specialist to go over the last CT scan I had a few weeks ago. Prior to the CT scan, I was told that my double vision would probably be permanent, and the displacement of my eye may not be completely fixable. However, apparently the CT scan shows that the bottom muscle of my eye is depressed into the silastic implant that was put in back in November. So basically, that muscle isn’t moving freely and is contributing to my double vision and cosmetic differences between my two eyes. The good news is that they think they can do something about it. That is, they are probably going to go in and adjust everything to free that muscle and hopefully restore proper function to my eye. The obvious downside to that is that it involves another surgery at St. Paul’s with associated […]

This afternoon at 4:30pm I have yet another CT scan down at St. Paul’s Hospital. I’ve been waiting for this one nearly a month now, so it will be nice to finally have it done. I’ve been told I can’t eat for at least four hours before the scan, so apparently this banana bread is my only meal until supper time. I’m not sure if they are putting some funky dye into my blood, but I’ll know in a few hours I guess. Update — Ok, so it’s all over now. I got down to St Paul’s at around 4:15pm and just chilled in the waiting area for a while. At around 4:35, some lady calls me up and walks me into the room with the CT machine. This one was far more low tech (i.e. way more scary) than the one I had before, and it looked almost medieval. […]