Caitlindancer writes:

For our troops
Even if you don’t agree with the reasons they’re overseas, remember our soldiers. Thanks.

If you go to this web site,
www.letssaythanks.com
you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a
soldier that is currently serving in Iraq . You can’t pick out who
gets it, but it will go to some member of the armed services.

How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!!

This is a great site.

Please send a card.

It is FREE and it only takes a second.

I think it’s a great idea, knowing those who have served. Things like this are always worth reposting

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I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
-Isaac Asimov

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When I post to my regular blog (http://chaos.greenhead.com) it cross-posts to my LJ account. I do it this way to keep a life-line out there to all my other friends who have LJ. The problem with the crossposting is that the text comes over, but not always the images, and *definately not* the embedded videos.

So my last two posts probably made absolutely no sense to anyone, because all you saw was my commentary and not the videos. You gotta read the entries at the real blog site to get the full post… THEN it will all make sense.

Wish I had a better way, but I don’t.

I only noticed it today after logging into LJ to add a few more friends.

I think from now on, I’ll put a {Video} ‘tag’ in the raw text so that at least it’s obvious. I’m not about to go back and redit all the LJ posts.. that defeats the purpose of automation.

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{Video}

Just because it bears discussion…

Just because you wanna keep watching to see if the next trick is worse than the first…

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{Video}

Damn.. I wanna go home and play some more video games… looking forward to the holiday season… means more games…. games…. games… gotta have em…..

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Well my good ol’ friend Murphy is back in town again. Here’s the latest update from me.

The knee is getting better (albeit slowly). I was supposed to go in today at 8am and meet with them to confirm that there wasn’t a blood clot in the leg, due to the increased swelling and the fact that the swelling had moved into my thigh. If everything was ok, I was going to try a half day at work.

Instead, I woke up at around 4am with a dry mouth sensation. That progressed into utter panic as I couldn’t breathe and felt like something was blocking my throat. Everytime I talked or took a breath, it would get cutoff. The first thought was that something was stuck, so my natural reaction was to try and expell it. That only made it worse, as I’d gag again. I wound up spitting up blood (again adding more panic), but that was likely due to the sheer force of my gagging and attempts to breath, and popping some vessels in my throat.

The fear of not being to breath was unlike anything else I’ve ever felt. I was trying to tell Jean what the problem was, but couldn’t get it out. At this point I knew I wasn’t choking on an object, so nothing like the Heimlich would have made sense. I motioned to her to get me something to write on, and scribbled (8 or 9 on the illegible scale). She asked if I wanted her to call 911, which I nodded yes to through the tears. As I drank some water, I managed to squeak out a few words.

The EMT first responders arrived in about 8 or 9 minutes. They took all my vitals and put an IV in my arm. They even draw blood so that the bloodwork could be started the moment I arrived in the ER. At this point, we still had no idea what the cause was, but I long as I drank water, I could get one or two words out before I choked again. We waited for the ambulance to arrive so that they could transport me. Things to add to your fun list ‘Getting loaded onto a gurney and into an ambulance during a rain storm in the dark’. Right now they were looking at it as a possible allergic reation, or trauma from the surgery on Thursday (they put a tube down my throat)

I left Jean and the kids at home. It made the most sense. With respiratory distress, we wanted someone there ASAP. The time it would take to get us all loaded in the car, down to the ER, checked in, etc, would have been a pain in the ass.

We arrived in the ER and the doctor examined me. His examination revealed that my uvula was swollen. You can click that link for more information rather than typoing something else swollen into Google. Its that little stupid puching bag thing at the back of your throat. Important for a lot of things, and responsible for some things like sleep apnea. He then put me on several medicines. First was a steriod to reduce the initial swelling. Next was Benadryll, to deal with any possible allergic reaction. Finally an antibiotic to deal with any possible post-operative infection.

While I was there they also did an ultrasound on my leg and confirmed no blood clot (yeah).

I also received a visit from the Ear, Nose, Throat specialist. This was after about 2 hours. Thing number two to add to your fun list ‘Having a 12–18” scope inserted through your nose and into your throat while trying to avoid gagging’. That was one of the more painful experiences I’ve had recently as well. It was tough because I had to breathe thru my nose to help the insertion as well as say ‘EEEEEee’, The uvula of course kept getting in the way and causing me to gag. Not fun. Not even remotely. He confirmed that there was no visible infection and no blockage or foreign object or ulcer/tumor etc. His diagnosis was a uvula edema. It could have been caused by the initial trauma during surgery, but more likely was caused by me having to lay on my back to keep my leg elevated and then in turn snoring and stressing the poor bugger out.

For now I have to wait for the swelling to reduce. When I was discharged at 11, the initial steriod wasn’t as effective as it should have been, so they gave me another dose. I also have a perscription for a steriod at home, and Benadryll.

I have a followup appt with the ENT Dr. on Friday, and I’m on restricted activity until then. I am unable to drive. Partially because of the medicine and partially because of possible future respiratory distress. After our appointment, he should clear me, assuming nothing else is wrong. Sometime in the near future, we’re going to do a sleep apnea study as well. I had one about 6 years ago with no positive results.

So that’s the latest pickle. If I breath thru my nose, I’m less likely to gag. If I do talk, it has to be in short sentences and low volume. I also have the perplexing need to both elevate my leg while sleeping as well as elevate my head. “I’m not an animal”. I’m going to try and work out a system of pillows  to sleep on my side and keep my leg up. The swelling should subside in the next few days, so now it’s just a waiting game. One strange side effect is that the steriods seem to be doing their job not only my uvula, but on my leg as well. It seems that the swelling has gone down a bit in the last 12 hours.

Blech!!

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So last March was the latest incident in my ongoing knee saga. I’ll quote the final line of that entry:

Maybe this is the one to cause enough damage.

Apparently it was. Since then, there has been a little crack every time I bend my knee while sitting, shifting gears, etc. So about two weeks ago I was at my doctor and he was looking at my tennis elbow (yeah fencing injury #2). I told him about the cracking and he wanted to look into it. So we did a compression Xray (weight bearing). When we got back in and looked at it, he says, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that you still have room behind your knee cap (and points), and the bad news is that your kneecap is slowly collapsing (compares the gap to the xray from 4 years ago), and its 50–75% smaller. He recommends surgery to repair the torn meniscus.

I tell him that the biggest fencing event of the year is coming up in January, and since it’s been 4 years already, could it wait until then. Nope, he wants to get me in ASAP, so that happened to be yesterday. 6:45am to be precise. So we had to get up at 5am, get the kids ready, packed etc and make the hour drive down to the surgery center. Dr. Harhay’s a good surgeon and worth the effort though.

Here’s my wonderful knee post-op. The surgery went fairly well as I understand it. Unfortunately, because of stupid HIPA laws, he has to talk to the patient and not someone else. I mean, wtf? I just got our of surgery and you’re trying to talk to me about your findings, recovery rules, etc, and I can bearly keep my eyes open let alone remember anything. I would have gladly signed something so that the Doctor could talk to my wife instead. Nope. I’ll get the full story when I follow-up with him in 2 weeks. Here’s what I do know..

In addition to the torn meniscus, I also had 3 cracks in my knee cap, and I was missing cartilage behind it. I thought I member him saying he was able to fix everything. Who knows.

I didn’t come out of recovery too well. They called my wife to pick me up and said “He’d be ready in 20 minutes”. Well it was 45 minutes after she got there. I was very naseuous and they had to keep giving me medicine. I also kept falling back asleep. It was just that side of ‘please let me throw up and I’ll feel better I promise’, for almost the entire time.. not fun at all.

I slept the whole way home. Then I got in, laid on the couch and proclaimed “I’m feeling a little better, maybe I’ll stay u…” Seriously. I was asleep again in less than a minute. Most of the afternoon I was sleeping and waking in like 20 minute spurts. I finally managed to stay awake from about 5pm to 10p. Overnight was strange. I woke up here and there, once staying awake around 5am and watching some TV. Drugs do really weird things to you.

On that note, let me say ‘Yeah Oxycodone’. Knowing how powerful the stuff is, I’m trying to avoid it unless I really need it, and take Tylenol instead. I needed some today when my *muttering* dog decided to leap onto it. I’m supposed to start my exercises today, so I’m sure I’ll need some after that too.

If all goes well, I’m supposed to have 80% mobility in 3 days.. we’ll see if it’s true or not. I’m supposed to be back to work on Monday, but now 36 hours later, when the surgery medication is finally starting to wear completely off, I’m starting to realize what actual pain I’m in. I;m going to try and keep it elavated – which is real difficult trying to get your knee above your head for extended periods of time.

Alrighty, that’s my update. Who knows, as the 01doc021102332 (that’s Doctor, typed by a 15 month old, btw), said, I should be no worse off in January for K&Q then I would have been without the s354urge4ry0, maybe even better. Problem will just be that I won’t have the 8 weeks leading50 up to it for practicing.

Of course, I’m worried that this is going to be career ending. The doctor and I are going to talk about that later. Originally he felt fairly confident that it wouldn’t be, but with this additional damage, I don’t know how that will affect things.

Keep your fingers crossed.. I wanted to fence into my 50s, not my 30s…

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