Tag: surgery Posts

I’m back now from Europe, and taking a well deserved rest from travel for a few months. While I had a good time on my last trip, it wasn’t something I was totally looking forward to at the time, mainly because I had just gotten through recovering from a big surgery and was enjoying life around home. In terms of my surgery, I think the end result is quite a bit better. I had a private CT scan done in Serbia so I could gain some peace of mind with regards to the outcome, and here was the end result. You can basically see the titanium mesh which is under my left eye (shown on the right), and the complete lack of bone underneath it, which was the source of most of my issues. The implant has restored the proper configuration of the inside of my eye socket, and the […]

In exactly four weeks from today, I’ll probably be waking up in Vancouver General Hospital after having my third surgery to correct some orbital fractures I received in 2006. I met with the surgical coordinator yesterday to complete all the pre-surgery documentation giving the surgeons my consent to operate on me, one more time. The surgeon performing the operation is one of the best in his field, even internationally. Years ago he helped start Singapore’s eye care centre, and he frequently travels and speaks at international conferences. He’s published several different books on eye surgery, and was recommended to me by pretty much all the surgeons I contacted in the United States over the last year. He recently retired from public practice, but after reviewing my case, decided to perform one more operation in an effort to help me out. Assisting with the surgery will also be Dr. David Rossman, […]

As many people know, I suffered a few facial fractures back in 2006. The primary result of that incident was to put my cheekbone slightly out of alignment, as well as the complete destruction of the bone under my left eye (other than maybe a 1mm ledge on one side, there’s literally nothing there any more). I had one surgery back in 2006 to put my eye back in the right place. It improved things slightly, but still left me with a droopy eye and some residual double vision. About six months later the surgeon did a CT scan, which ultimately looked like this: The surgeon concluded at the time that the reason my eye was still droopy was because the orbital shape on the left side (which appears on the right in the CT image above) didn’t match the shape on the left. Effectively that leads to an increase […]

I just went to get a few groceries, and had this weird feeling my stomach like I was forgetting something. I looked at the time on my iPhone and realized that it was three years ago to the day that I went through that window in Vancouver. Times flies I guess, as do people.

It’s been nearly four weeks now since I had some minor surgery on my face. For those of you following along, I made a decision a few months ago to have a few moles removed from my face. As a kid, they were awesome beauty marks that made me the envy of the playground, but as I got older, they had slowly increased in size to the point where they were interfering with shaving and what-not. Two of them were fairly flat, but the one on my cheek was raised slightly, and would get nicked from time to time by my razor (at which point I’d spend the next few hours trying to get it to stop bleeding). The event that put me over the edge was when my 11 year old niece pointed one out a while ago, which made me a bit more self-conscious of it than I […]

All my stitches are out. This is day five after surgery now. All the areas are a bit red, but they’re healing. Was nice to take a real shower today and also shave. It generally takes about 6 months for surgery sites to finish healing, so I still have lots of healing to do. A little bit of trivia – after 7 days, surgery sites only have about 7% of the tensile strength of normal skin. So still have to be careful for a while.

A few weeks ago I blogged about an upcoming appointment to have a few moles removed from my face (the main reason being that I keep cutting them while shaving). Well, today was the day, and they’re officially gone. Strangely enough, I’ve developed a bit of a fainting reaction over the years to needles. That’s weird because needles don’t scare me in the least, and for the most part, I have a pretty high pain tolerance. But there’s something about a needle being stuck in me that elicits some kind of physiological reaction, almost like my body knows something else is coming, and tries to shut down. The first time it happened I was getting a needle in the doctor’s office here in Chilliwack (about ten years ago). As soon as it went in my heart rate plummeted and I got all woozy and shaky. My doctor had to put […]

I have an appointment on Wednesday to get a few moles removed from my face. I’ve had them most of my life, and for the most part they haven’t really bothered me. That being said, this last year I’ve found myself cutting two of them while shaving from time to time, which usually results in them bleeding for hours at a time (real attractive, I know). You can see two of them in this photo. The first is the one on my right cheek, and the second is the one on my left upper-lip. The third one is really tiny, and it’s in the center of my lip (I don’t cut it shaving, but I figure I might as well get it out at the same time). There are three options with regards to removing moles. Option one is to use a laser to remove the pigment. This works for […]

So this was my second full week at the gym. Other than Wednesday (where I missed going because I had to go to Vancouver), I was there every day this week. I’m definitely noticing an improvement in fitness, since my heart rate has come down while doing cardio, and I find it harder to get out of breath when I’m whacking a tennis ball around the court. I’ve been doing my normal routines in the morning, and also trying to get out and do something in the evenings as well (either go for a walk, hit some tennis balls, or rollerblade). I generally eat fairly well when I’m at home (depending on your definition of well I guess). I’m a pretty big low-carb advocate, mainly because I feel way better when I don’t eat a ton of carbs. I still splurge from time to time and eat a “normal” meal, […]

Just got back from my appointment this morning. Some lady spent 20 minutes giving me impromtu eye tests, and measuring my face and eye positions. There’s one tool they use to measure eye displacement which is actually slightly painful because they force it to sit on the edge of your eye socket and press it there. Unfortunately, my left orbital bone is slightly out of place so it’s hard to get an accurate measurement using that device. Anyways, once I finally talked to the surgeon, he basically indicated that another surgery at this stage is probably too risky. He said even though the end result isn’t completely ideal, given the magnitude of the original injury, he thinks the end result is fairly successful. There are small cosmetic revisions they can make if I want, but I really don’t think I want to go down that route. So that’s it I […]