Warning: Not For Everyone - Coma Time

My wife was nice enough to take pictures of me right after the accident, in my coma.  She was of the opinion that if I ever woke up, I'd want to see the damage.  It's not particularly pretty, although at least there's only a little blood, a neck brace, and a bunch of tubes, and not chunks of me hanging loose, eyes missing, or large machines helping me breathe.  There is a tube in my chest, via the side, you just can't see it.

So here's your warning, again.  These are pictures of me in a coma in the hospital after my accident.  If you get squeamish looking at hospital pics, you might want to just move on.  But then again, they could be much worse.  She Says was particularly interested in seeing them, so I dedicate this post to her.

Mostly it looks like I'm taking a machinery assisted nap.

Closer up, so you can appreciate the head damage.  My hair is much longer now.  I'd just had a haircut.  Haven't had one since the accident and I'm looking a little bushy.  The bleeding areas are just some small scaring and only one cut has any sort of deeper scar tissue under it.  Nothing bad - it all just makes a matching set with my old forehead scar from having my birthmark removed.

Even closer.  She's going for that flea on the butt of a rat in the belly of a cat at the bottom of the sea metaphor.

I like this one because Stripe, the zebra, is in the picture.  Eryn brought me Stripe to keep me company and she kept the mini pillow pet (tm), Pattern, so we had a connection.  Awfully nice of her.  The zebra was later very useful for getting rid of my hallucinations.  I'll blog about those later.

An awful close up picture.  I'm more mortified about the baldness and chin rolls than I am the tubes and blood.  I once read about a woman who started a business to make sure women with cancer could have makeup and other services, so they felt confident while locked up in a hospital bed.  Found it...Look Good, Feel Better.  Although I don't imagine there's anyway to prevent a certain slackness to the face laying on your back passed out and covered with a few days of stubble.

Looking much better now, at least in my opinion.

Hospital Visit

Pooteewheet went to the hospital for surgery yesterday. If you're a Facebook friend, you've probably heard at least a few bits and pieces. She's doing as fine as can be expected given they cut into her to move around some nerves that were entrapped by tendons and bent over bones and she's supposed to be back home sometime tomorrow. Eryn and I hung out while the surgery was underway, mostly playing hangman online. She was partial to the Harry Potter set, although we only scored a B grade. A great kid site.

The hospital my wife is in is great. Attractive, modern, wifi, open spaces, and a lady who distributes free cookies and sodas while you listen to the live piano or harp music. The only downside is they won't take a credit card in the cafeteria. But there are plenty of places to eat nearby.

I came home to a broken water heater, which explains my lukewarm shower this morning. Negative: broken water heater. Postive: I'm taking care of my wife at home for the next two days (well, four), so I can have the fix it guy come figure out why the pilot light only flickers. Almost looks like the tube has blockage.

Some of my favorite things from the last two days:

Driving home to get Eryn and bring her back to the hospital today, the passenger in the pickup in front of me kept rolling down her window, holding a brush outside, and then flicking something out that would bounce off my car. It took three rounds before I realized she was simultaneously cleaning her brush and giving my car a merkin.

If you're an expert in therapeutic horticulture, what you really do is not nearly as interesting as I thought it was on first consideration.

Touch therapy is downright weird. And it's difficult not to laugh - although it's possible if you keep your head down in a book - while a woman is waving her hands over your wife to live harp music. It looked like she was trying to push away farts.

Eryn enjoying the CT Scaning machine in the playset area:

Infection - The Photos

French Dip asked to see some photos of my incarceration. I didn't leave them out because I didn't want to show them. It's just that I wrecked 'em. Ahahahaha....just try and outpun me. Dicks. Anyway, I just hadn't managed to get them off Pooteewheet's camera yet because I have to pop the chip, put that little chip in a bigger chip, put it in the camera, and then download the pictures. It's annoying.

Unfortunately, I don't have any surgical footage for you, although I'd have enjoyed that. They should tape surgery for you - that would be cool. Way better than wedding videos. But, if you're French Dip and you really must see a few nice pictures of hemorrhoids, then here's a Google image search. Keep in mind that anal melanomas are aggressive malignancies only masquerading as hemorrhoids and shouldn't be confused with anything I was suffering from. I was in no such danger (scroll down on that one from some enjoyable photos. The phrase "6 cm prolapsed, nodular, pigmented anal melanoma" should be enough to make your stomach churn without accompanying media).

Here I am in the ER. IVed and prior to antibiotics or the hospital. Don't look up my dress, although if you start to, you can see I still have a little bit of a tan from bicycling. That is not a Lance Armstrong bracelet.


Bad oxygen levels. They don't like it when you're at 90% and your white blood cell counts are way up. So they hook you to this tube which made my sinuses first dry, then congested. I'm not sure if those are hives or dry skin. Being in a hospital/clinic environment has given me hives before (I think there's a disinfectant to which I'm slightly allergic).


The shunt they left in for my hospital stay while they pumped various antibiotics into my system to cycle the fever down.


This will be the name of a future nephew. Axial. You KNOW this is a sign. It even starts with an "A". I should have scribbled a request on the back of a napkin in case I'd died in the bed.