I look like I pissed off Vash
 

So Thursday night I was playing in the final softball game of the season, playing right field. Dude at the plate hits a hard tailing liner to right, I run up toward it and as I'm bringing my glove up, the balls skips right across a bank of lights and I lose it completely. I move my glove up but the ball skips right across the top and nails me just above the left eye.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1351908918

A few hours later after an ER trip, I've got a broken frontal orbital bone, a few stitches above the eye, and a ton of swelling. I'll be going to an ENT on Wednesday to be checked out because the orbit fractured in a few places and is displaced back into the sinus.

On the plus side, I got a prescription for hydrocodone. On the negative side, it barely touched the pain the first night. It's manageable now, but toward the end of each dosage is pretty sucky.

fuck

ouch

don't piss off vash again

You look like Vash's X-Box.

Well, that's not what coach meant when he said "keep your eye on the ball"




















I'm so sorry... I just couldn't help myself :facepalm:

All joking aside though, I had a very good friend who broke the same orbital, plus both his cheekbones (lower orbital?) in an airplane crash. They rebuilt the orbital with titanium mesh, but one eye sits about 1/16" lower than the other now. The convalescence was a bitch though. I wish you nothing but a speedy and uncomplicated recovery, ocular trauma is no bueno.

It's all the fault of the Federal Reserve Bank. If the US had stayed on the gold standard, your eye would be fine.

This will never, ever get old :rofl:

that's what they said about "Because Racecar"...

Ouch that had to hurt.

At least you have a proper beard. It makes you look like a bad ass, not to mention the color coordination with your eye! :giggle:

I was gonna say u a pussy son

But now i gotta say

Balls.

So, met with the ENT surgeon this morning. Surgery is a definite, no question about it. The big question right now is whether they will be able to go in through the small laceration just below my eyebrow (thus minimizing additional scarring) or have to cut my scalp across the top and pull my forehead down over my face (oh! what a great Halloween costume that would have made). Looking like it'll be scheduled for the end of next week, as waiting any longer than 2 weeks will allow the bones to heal too much.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1352312138

holy fucking craps best of luck dude

Thats a lot of pain to endure. Im sure youll be fine but you still unfortunately have more pain to go. Lay off the strong meds if you can though. Things are pretty addictive

I hear acupuncture and aromatherapy works great for blinding scorching crushed orbital pain.

Depending on what they give you, ^^ This.

I've had 3 reconstructive surgeries on my sinuses including a bone graft. They put me on this: WATSON 349 imprint (acetaminophen/hydrocodone 500 mg / 5 mg) - Drugs.com I took the recommended dosage and all it did was make me space out. Narcos are a real bitch and I discovered I really need to avoid them personally. It didn't make the pain go away, it made me not care about the pain, and that is the dangerous part. That part about "high psychological dependence" is legit, it was probably one of the scariest parts of the whole process. It scared me enough that I cut it back to 1/2 of the recommended and made it work.

Hopefully they won't (but they probably will) pack your sinus while it heals after surgery. That's a whole another nightmare. Having been there, I really really feel for you man. Watch your ass and get your rest.

That honestly freaks me out to look at.

I'm not a big fan of head trauma in the first place, but when crushing deformation of the skull is involved, it really kinda gives me the willies.

Then I guess you dont wanna hear about my 6 concussions, how my skull has been cracked twice and leaked brain fluid the second time or how my jaw was busted by a swift kick with a steel toe boot or...etc etc lol

Was the swift kick from Chuck Norris?

Yes actually, we would.

CSF... mmm... Sugary

Best of luck to you. Next time watch out when them big balls are coming at ya.

When I saw the thread I didn't know what to expect. lol

Sucks it had to hit you in the fucking eye man. I don't know what would be worse; eye, nose, or teeth. Probably eye.

Hydrocodone is SUPER addictive. At least it was for me. I was taking the shit for a few months before I finally couldn't get any more refills and I don't even like to take advil, motrin, etc.

Good luck with everything, ohh and sorry about that. lol

Id be dead now

Nah, no one would but you most likely lol

Took the Hydrocodone 750/7.5 for 5 days straight. Definitely helped me sleep. Cut it out yesterday with no problems.

The CT scan looks bad...but it's worse running your fingers over a big dent in your own skull. Definitely an odd feeling.

I minimized my dosage to what I required to not scream out loud constantly. I was warned of dependence and was cautious. If you have no more than is needed for the pain, there is no euphoria. And I have a couple left if I ever throw out my back or something.



Sixteen staples of joy:


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1352338787

Good grief, you look like a football.

I've never thought about it, but that is pretty funny.

Vagina head lol

The movie teeth comes to mind...

This thread makes me want to wear a full-face helmet just to walk out the front door.

I had a brain tumor removed. Under the stapled area they sawcut a 2x2 inch section of skull as an entryway. It was a joyous experience. I would hate to have to go through what Mark is enduring now.

On the lighter side, my perspective regarding a good day versus a bad one was recalibrated during those weeks of recovery. A fellow can find himself yearning for normal, boring, and ordinary in a way that I did not think possible. Every simple day devoid of intense suffering is a gift to be thankful for and should be savored.

Last night I told my wife I was scared of horses. She asked why and I said: because they are bigger than me and can kill me, and since they dont speak english, im not sure if they are going to kill me or not.

She then said my fear was irrational because Im never around horses and I shouldn't even think I have this fear.

Moral: dont trust horses.

Mark:

Walk it off.

jk...+1 on being careful with the narcotics

Steve:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1352388830

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1352389401

:rofl:

Yea I had this same feeling after I had my back surgery. It really makes you appreciate everything you have. And yea I had pretty bad withdrawals when I stopped taking my hydrocodon.

See, now that I have no problem with. The took you into a nice, controlled environment, did some measuring, built a 3d CAD model of your head, got everything lined up, made straight cuts, lifted out an intact and regularly-formed piece of your skull, did a bit of noodling around in there with a sharp, clean knife, probably had a nice conversation with you while they were in there, let you look at the hot nurse, etc.

They didn't just jump out from behind a tree, whack you on the top of the skull with a hammer and say "Ok, that's good enough."


I am curious about one thing- given the relative invasiveness of open surgery- what are the criteria in a situation such as that which determine whether to open the skull or treat the tumor via stereotactic radiosurgery?

If you ask a man with a knife how to cut something he will give you a different answer than the man holding a chainsaw. In my case they did both. Not knife and chainsaw, but knife and then the focused beam radiation. The tumor was large enough to require mechanical removal because the amount of radiation required to remove it by radiation alone would have been significant. They were not able to get all of it with a knife because of its proximity to a blood vessel that would leak during the slashing and gouging phase. They elected to finish a couple of weeks later with the focused radiation.

By the way, for the radiation treatment it was incredibly painful when the doc bolted the metal frame into my skull while I was conscious using sharpened stainless bolts and a 3/8 wrench. Topical anesthetics can kiss my ass. I still have the scars in my forehead where the front two bolts were wrenched through my skin and into my skull.

Now see, that's the stuff of nightmares.

Yes, I look liked I got hit in the face by one of the Klitschkos, but it happened in an instant. I had a bead on what would have been the 3rd out of the inning, and then a split second later I lost the ball, got smacked, and then was down on the ground. I didn't lose consciousness but I was in shock, so everything was pretty muted.

But someone actively tightening sharpened bolts into my head while I watch AND I CAN'T GET AWAY??? That's nasty.

Dammit! Just found out that the new CT scan revealed more fracturing that the surgeon originally thought. Definitely no way he can go in through a brow incision, so that means he'll be doing a big scalp incision and peeling my face down off my forehead.

crap, sorry to hear man

Damn, hate to hear that.

You must not be hitting the pain meds too hard. Your typing is still pretty good.

Hope it goes ok, and you are back in the game soon.

No pain meds right now, not even ibuprofen.

Good Guy Mark

Is taking tons of painkillers

Still types better than Faeflora


Edit: dammit you ruined my joke.

The scalp option isn't fun. Worst migraine EVER, and the super drugs couldn't touch it. I think I win on total # of staples.
(This is what happens when you get turned into a pancake by an F-150)

Zipper head!

What happened with your hair? The doc mentioned that the hair follicles along the incision sometimes stop working. This would suck as I usually buzz my head with a #0 guard. Would really hate if I had to grow out my hair to cover it.

Sorry to hear that, Mark. The good news is it doesn't look like you were very handsome to start with, so you don't have much to worry about.

It all came back... eventually. I don't remember exactly how long it took to need a haircut there, but at 6 months it was definitely normal though. There's still a ridge in a couple places, but you wouldn't notice unless you were giving me a noogie.

The weird thing was that there's a nerve that runs down your forehead to right above your eye. My left one tingled constantly, and it went absolutely berserk if I was hungry. Not pain; it was just THERE. That lasted 9 months maybe?

Mine is usually done with a 2.5 or 3 guard and you can still see it but who cares? I get to tell people about it when they ask and we can have a conversation about cool scars, surgeries, and injuries. Experiences are what make life interesting, and the stories can be fun to share. A scar means something happened to you and people will want to know what it was.

Delturcious could make up a good bar story about being held captive by a deranged scientist of some sort who conducted experiments on him for weeks before releasing him. And since then he wakes up sometimes from blackouts always in the same area of woods with blood and wood splinters on his hands every time. And it isn't his blood.

Mark, a friend of mine had a similar crushing injury in a mountainbike accident about 10 years ago, when his face met with a particularly sharp protruding rock. He has the Ti mesh material in his cheek and eye, and had I not been told he was in the accident I would have never known.

Best of luck for a speedy, painless recovery.

So I don't even get a chuckle for talking crap about the injured guy's looks for no good reason...

I am fail.

I've done a bunch of sales/instructional videos for a cranio-implant manufacturer and always wondered who the people were with heads hanging open in these videos. ;)

Huh- I didn't realize that they did that anymore. Don't the newer systems just use a plastic faceplate for coarse alignment, and then steer the beam in realtime based on fluoroscopic position-tracking?

Was your treatment with one of the cobalt-based devices like gamma knife, or was it an accelerator-based system?

Nobody laughed because even if I come out of this with only 86% of my previous level of comeliness, I'll still be better looking than all of you gays.


Anyway, the surgery has been moved up to Tuesday afternoon. The latest CT scan revealed more damage so the brow incision has been ruled out -- I'll be getting the big zipperhead scalp incision. Yay.

Mark your calendars, you should be getting some painkiller-influenced funny posts from me sometime Wednesday of next week.

They said Gamma Knife was old hat and that this was much more precise, whatever it was. They damn sure didn't want me wiggling.

I had it done at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. They had just gone through some big stink about calibration of the machine and the doc whose machine it was assured me it was the most double checked device of it's kind in the world that month. I guess somebody had gotten in trouble for something not being setup right.

Gamma knife is extremely old hat- 60s tech. Still in use, though. Most reliable radiotherapy device ever created.

I was just curious, as I thought that most (all?) accelerator-based system were flouroscopically aligned in real time. Admittedly, I'm not a medical physicist, just an avid reader.

I gotta tell you, though- Linacs scare the hell out of me. One of my jobs involves software reliability testing, and one of the most famous case-studies in that field has to do with a specific series of computer-controlled accelerators that killed about a dozen people all across North America in the mid 80s due to a really bizarre and improbable series of bugs.

http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf

That case is literally textbook material in any graduate-level course involving ethics in computing, reliability, etc.

I dunno about the head, but I had my right knee filleted open to repair my ACL, LCL, and PCL after a motorcycle accident years ago. The LCL tore completely off the femur so they had to cut an almost 12" long incision down the right outer side of my right knee to repair it. In the immediate area of the scar, aka the scar itself, no hair grows at all and it is about 1/8-1/4" wide in parts the whole way down. The unaffected skin beyond that grows hair normally. I think the only way you can avoid having a huge scar is if your surgeon has skills of a plastic surgeon in his cuts and stitching. Also, the staples will promote a larger scar in my experience. They have better tech like biodegradable stitches and glue that can be used for a cleaner wound, but I don't know how those apply in your situation. That would be something you'd have to consult your doctor about. He may consult a plastic surgeon, or have one assist in the surgery. That's gonna drive up the bill though.

A plastic surgeon and a oral/maxillofacial surgeon are consulting and the oral/maxillofacial surgeon is assisting I believe.

This is what's wrong with healthcare, so whatever, but I have a good Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy so I'm not concerned about the final cost.

Mine cost quite a bit when all the settlements between the various entities and the insurance companies were completed. I believe the MRI series alone cost about $1200 out of pocket. I have a substantial policy with pretty small deductibles, too.

I can only wish you luck.

Joe,

Apparently Moffitt offers all of these and I don't know what mine was:

• Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy (SABR)
• Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS)
• Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT)
• Image Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT)
• Three-dimensional Computerized Radiation Therapy (3D CRT)
• Four-dimensional Computerized Radiation Therapy
• Volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT)

Quick update. Surgery went well and everything looks good. Post op really, really sucked. 12 hours of intense pain and nausea, with lots of bleeding from the vomiting raising my blood pressure. Finally under control now. Able to chew some ice chips and jello. Probably going to end up staying a second night in the hospital to make sure the bleeding has stopped from my scalp and they can take the drain out.

Thanks everyone for the kind thoughts.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1352924480