I look like I pissed off Vash
#44
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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).
(This is what happens when you get turned into a pancake by an F-150)
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
Best of luck for a speedy, painless recovery.
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Was your treatment with one of the cobalt-based devices like gamma knife, or was it an accelerator-based system?
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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.
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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?
Was your treatment with one of the cobalt-based devices like gamma knife, or was it an accelerator-based system?
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.
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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 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.
Last edited by Joe Perez; 11-10-2012 at 10:44 AM.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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)
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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.
Thanks everyone for the kind thoughts.
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