An interesting note: there seemed to be more concern about what type of sole my shoe had, when I got my injury. Apparently, if you have rubber soles, rubber carries a lot more bacteria… and increases the chance that bad things get introduced into your system. Who knew?
I totally forgot that I stepped on a nail yesterday, when I was working on pulling up the floor in the living room. It was painful (the nail went through my boot), and I yelped… but it wasn’t a super deep puncture. But I do believe it did puncture the skin slightly.
Honestly, in addition to the process itself… the administration of this drug was also fairly unsettling to me. I heard stories of people emerging from this having said or blurted out all manner of crazy things.
Part of me wondered: what would I say? Horrible things about what I thought of others? Would I blurt out statements that would reveal me for the horrible person I am, deep down? Would something happen where I would lose all of my memories, and not just the ones during the procedure.
The day before my procedure, I was working from home. I dropped Liz off at the train station, picked up a coffee… and what I walked by the bathroom upstairs, I spotted this little gift that Liz had left for me.
My wife, ladies and gentelmen. God bless her.
She did an assessment, and did some adjustments – which were very surprising to me. I was somewhat ready for the man-handling, but was caught by surprise several times at some of the moves. The neck cracking thing wasn’t too bad – but there was one adjustment that happened with me on my side that had me say “Oh!” out loud.
After my recent sleep study at Northwestern, I had a chance to go with a new vendor and get a new CPAP machine for my sleep apnea.
Interestingly, the same treatments are used (and have the same success rate), regardless of what Stage someone is in. There are some options like cortisone shots, or splints + medical-grade anti-inflammatories, or surgery. But the success rate for each stays the same, regardless of the stage you’re in.
Mine is pretty much identical to Marvel’s, but with fewer infinity gems.
So. While it’s not the developmental cyst, I actually need to now schedule an appointment with a neurologist (and possibly get an MRI). Dr. Powell said that the issue I’m experiencing isn’t dire… but it’s important to try to figure out why it’s happening. He said that 99 times out of 100, it’s nothing. But there’s a slight chance the issue is happening due to something like a brain tumor. So it’s important to get and rule out the bad stuff.
On Saturday, Liz and I met up with Julie and Bob at the University of Chicago, inside the Center for Care and Discovery building. Bob was scheduled to undergo a surgical procedure (something I really haven’t mentioned on here, before now). Without going into details, suffice it to say it was a serious procedure and we’ll leave it at that.
I learned that the numbness is normal, and usually takes a long time to recover. The cyst (which is what I have) was impacting the nerve endings in the roof of my mouth – and at times, it can stretch the area. In some cases, numbness goes away after 2 weeks or so. But if the nerve endings end up dying as a result of being stretched, it takes longer for them to grow back. The rate Dr. Powell told me was something in the area of 1mm per day.
Oddly, I’ve found that brushing my teeth sometimes helps. Perhaps this is due to the act getting the blood circulating more in the affected area. But it seems that once an hour or so, I’m back in the bathroom cleaning my teeth like someone with OCD.
This “developmental cyst” that I have (and its subsequent infection) has really put me out of commission the last few days. I’ve been unable to concentrate, and mostly unable to even relax. The pain/discomfort is ever-present, and only in a few instances has it abated enough to where I could really focus on something besides the discomfort.
Though Dr. Heath had some suspicious as to what this might be, he told me that none of the potential causes was “frightening.” Which is good, because in my head I was concocting up a whole slew of possible things (and all of them were frightening).
Going without alcohol won’t be all that bad, though I have gotten used to having a beer when I get home from work. The coffee thing will be a bit harder to kick, as I’m used to sipping on coffee throughout the day. We have some pretty terrible Starbucks packets at work, so it’s not like I’m missing all that much. I guess it’s the caffeine I miss, more than the coffee.