May stick to certain types of skin...

Here is some absolute ridiculousness I encountered today and another example of why functioning, flexible fingers and opposable thumbs was an excellent trait for our proto-simian ancestors to pass along to us down the evolutionary line.

I inadvertently super glued my mouth shut this morning.

Yeah, that's right.

What did you do today?

I have this lap desk that I often use while eating, making lunch, transporting objects around, what have you, and it has a plastic edging to keep things from sliding off of it and on to the floor. It is probably the most useful and used piece of adaptive equipment in my arsenal. The edging was something that we came up with when I was in occupational therapy, and it is not secured to the lap desk itself, just pressed and molded to the edge. Well, I broke that plastic edging off of it this morning. I knew that I needed to remedy this situation as soon as possible, because without the edging I could easily foresee future problems I didn’t want to deal with: the dropped lunch meat, spilled soup, broken dishware, crumbs everywhere. The list goes on and on. These are all things that had been avoided, for the most part, by modifying the lap desk in the first place, all those months ago now. Luckily, I had a couple of tubes of superglue, which I figured I could use to make the repairs. I had open up a new tube, however, to finish the job and that’s when things got exciting.

In what should normally be a very simple procedure, opening a new tube of superglue definitely has its possibilities for mishaps. This was something I felt extremely conscious of as I embarked on my task. The last thing I wanted was superglue all over my hands, pants, wheelchair, etc. Yet to get the tube open, you have to unscrew the applicator tip, puncture the foil seal covering the tube opening, and then screw the applicator tip and cap back on. For me, this means using my teeth to unscrew the cap to get the tube open, and using my mouth to squeeze the tube because I needed to free up my hands while gluing the edging back on the lap desk.

Somewhere in the midst of trying to puncture the foil to open the tube, I suddenly realized that the corner of my mouth was glued shut. I could also sense that some of the glue had gotten on my teeth. I'm not sure if any glue actually came out of the tube or if it was just the fumes from the glue that caused my lips to get stuck together, but regardless I was stuck.

Fortunately, even though superglue bonds instantly to skin, something about the conditions inside my mouth kept me from making, what I can only imagine to be a rather embarrassing trip to the emergency room. In fact, after a several swigs of water and a few goings over of my teeth with my thumbnail everything was back as it should be. I'm not endorsing poor dental hygiene, but I can only assume that the relative ease of my de-gluing is due to the fact that I had just finished breakfast, not yet brushed my teeth, and that a healthy layer of overnight plaque buildup and Life cereal residue prevented a super tight bond. Induced vomiting proved to not be necessary. For this, I am thankful.

Go, go gadget legs!

Yes, as of August 8th I’ve started using my new standing legs braces as an integral part of my rehab program. I go to therapy three times a week and at least two of the three days I’m doing some sort of work that gets my legs moving. The idea is that, even though I’m not yet able to move my leg on my own, moving my legs through the walking motion is very beneficial in keeping up muscle strength, bone density, blood circulation, hip and leg flexibility and so on, that doesn’t happen with me just sitting in my chair all the time. Also, it is believed that by doing the assisted walking we may be able to retrain or rewire my body to do the walking motion on its own.

So the new pictures I put up in the photo gallery show me doing some of those exercises. The first two (blurry) pictures are of me using the unweighted treadmill walking system. I get strapped into what is basically a parachute harness and then get suspended over a treadmill. My therapists can control how much weight is taken off of my legs and then they move my legs on the treadmill. My job is to try and stabilize my body from swinging back and forth too much, but the therapists end up doing most of the work. This exercise will often cause me to have muscle spasms that make my legs want to straighten out which the therapists have to work against. But after walking for a few minutes those spasms tend to go away and I usually get about twenty to thirty minutes of walking done.

The rest of the new photos are from the first time using my new leg braces. They don’t necessarily look like it, but they do indeed cost $14,000. They’re custom molded to my legs, made from carbon fiber, and contain a special German-engineered knee joint that, according to the orthodist, is what makes them so special. In days of yore, a standing leg brace could be set in two positions, unlocked at the knee for sitting, and locked for standing. My braces, because of this new knee joint can be set in those two positions, but also in a third setting that allows the brace to lock and unlock based on the position of the leg. So, for instance, if I’m wearing my braces on the unweighted treadmill they will lock as my leg swings forward through the walking motion so that I can bear weight on that leg. As my leg swings back the knee joint unlocks at a certain angle to allow the knee to bend so my leg can be brought forward again. At least that’s how they’re supposed to work. We’re still working the kinks out on that one.

In the pictures of me with my braces on, besides noticing what a tall drink of water I am and that I really needed a hair cut, you’ll see that the braces are always locked. This is because all of my weight is being supported by my legs. The walker I’m using is designed to help me stabilize my upper body, so it has arm supports, bracing in the front and back to help keep my waist secure, and a sling-like seat, but the braces allow me to stand completely upright. What I’m doing in the pictures is shifting my weight from side to side to allow my therapists to move my feet forward. In time, as I get more trunk control and stability back, the plan is that I’ll be able to use my torso to swing my legs forward on my own.

My Left Foot

If you thought 970 words on contact lens placement was entertaining and informative, here’s another 960 on my left big toenail. I wrote this a few weeks ago after my first visit to a podiatrist, but didn’t get around to posting it until now.

I whacked my big toe at some point during the winter, and it still hasn't healed properly. What happened was the skin along the side of my left big toe nail sort of separated from the nail. Sometimes it's fine, sometimes it will bleed a little bit, sometimes it looks infected, but until lately it hasn’t really been anything that I worried too much about. I mean, the last time anybody died from ingrown toenail had to have been the Civil War. One of the things I've learned since my accident is that I heal a lot slower now than I used to, so I've just been expecting my toe to take a longtime to heal. Lately, however, I've noticed that the skin that should be along side of the toenail is trying to grow over the toenail. So I decided that I had some time this week to make an appointment with a podiatrist.

The first thing to discover about making an appointment with podiatrist is that they must be very low in the hierarchy of medical professionals. If you open up the Yellow Pages, and go to the blue section where all the physicians’ names and numbers are listed, you won't find any listings for podiatrists. Podiatrists are listed outside of that section, and the more I think about podiatry, it kind of makes sense. I can't think of any minor foot problems that there aren't over-the-counter remedies for, and if it's a problem like a broken toe or foot people usually go to their regular doctors for that sort of thing. I’m imagining the world of podiatric medicine as a place where not much changes, to the extent that the annual International Conference of Podiatric Doctors probably takes place every two years. All the breakout sessions at the conference usually just disintegrate into bitch-fests about how they can get back at that “turncoat” Dr. Scholls, with his dizzying array of powders, shoe inserts, and mole skin.

I ended up making an appointment with a podiatrist primarily based on the proximity of his office to my apartment, because ultimately I think that’s what is important when finding the proper podiatrist. My other selection criteria, was that this doctor actually had an advertisement in the Yellow Pages not just a listing. I figure that on the extremes you will either get the podiatrist who is well aware of podiatry’s second-class citizenship in the world of medicine and is out to change that standing, or the podiatrist who went podiatry school because podiatrists still get to be called doctor and still get to be paid somewhat like a real doctor. These types of podiatrist are on par with the proctologist that chooses to go with vanity license plate “ASSMAN.” The rest of the world's podiatrists, fall somewhere in between those two extremes.

I'm happy to report that my podiatrist is more likely to get grouped with that second group. I need a little entertainment mixed in with my life-threatening medical experiences every now and then. One thing that keeps him from being completely lumped into that second group is the fact that he’ll make house calls. So when I arrived at my appointment and he wasn't actually there I thought to myself, “Must be a making a house call.” No, he pulled up shortly thereafter, in a late-model BMW, which I learned that he was test driving for his wife. "My wife wants to buy that BMW. We have five Weimaraners; they'll destroy the inside of that car."

When the doctor inspected my toe he explained that he was going to have to trim the loose skin away from the nail for it to heal properly. What he didn’t explain was that this also meant cutting away a portion of my toenail all the way to the cuticle and then pulling it out. Judging by the way my toe started twitching around, this was causing a great deal of pain. Luckily for me, I couldn’t feel it at all. The narration I was getting from my podiatrist as this was going on went something like this, “Look at that sucker gush blood,” and “This one’s just going to want to bleed.” When he went to pack a piece of cotton ball into my wound to stop up the bleeding, my toe would twitch as he touched it, his quote was “luckily I’m pretty good at hitting a moving target.” On referring to his tools and work space after bandaging up my toe, he said, “let me clean that bloody mess out of your way.” 

When I went back a few days later for my follow-up visit to get the bandaging taken off my podiatrist assured me that he couldn’t guarantee that the nail and skin would grow back properly. However, it was going to take so long for that the nail to grow back that I didn’t need to worry about it right now. This is perfect for me because that’s exactly how I ended up there in the first place. So, as long as I have my doctor’s professional opinion backing me up, I’m going to say that my toe worries are over for now.

My Right Eye

I know things have been a little quiet on the Care Pages front recently, but don't take my silence as a sign that nothing’s been happening. Quite the contrary; I'm back to doing therapy three days a week and I’m finding that when I get home I'm pretty tired. I’m taking that as a good sign for now, but I’m also taking lots of naps. So I don’t always get around to checking e-mail and things quite as routinely as I’d like. I do have a post in the can about an interesting and fun-filled trip to the podiatrist ready to go of these days. Keep on the lookout for that one; it’s a real barn burner.

For the last couple of days, I've been going around half blind, unable to see clearly out of my right eye. It seems that when I woke up Friday morning and went to rub the sleepy sand out of my eyes, my right contact lens decided to jump ship. I wear two-week disposable contacts, but ever since the accident, I’ve been wearing them 24-7 for weeks at a time, because with my limited hand function I can’t change them myself.

When I was first at St. Joseph’s Hospital, I tried to go back to wearing glasses for a couple days because of this contact changing problem. I realized though that when lying in a hospital bed with my neck immobilized, I could only see what was directly in front of my field of vision; which at that time consisted of the ceiling tile. I went back to wearing the contacts so I could have a wider field of vision. It required getting used to having somebody stick their fingers in my eyes, which you’re probably not supposed to allow, but over time I’ve gotten accustomed to it. Gradually my mom and I worked out a system that when she comes down to visit on the weekends, she changes my contact lenses for me.

Last weekend, when my mom was down to visit, we changed my contacts for the first time in many weeks. And on Friday morning, when my right contact lens decided to make a break for it, I was fairly steamed because I had just gotten this new pair in. I could go a whole week with one lens in and one lens out, thankfully my vision isn’t that bad, but it definitely isn’t the most ideal situation. So, I knew I was going to have to figure out how to get my contact back in my eye. I don't know what motivated my contact to try to jump out of my eye. It must’ve gotten word that this was going to be a longer enlistment than it originally signed up for. "I know when you were packaged up at Accuvue we promised you two-week Tour, but these drastic times call for drastic measures, Soldier. And no, you won't be able to come off the line every night for a soak. We may be able to bring some saline up to the front every now and then, but I can't promise anything."


Miraculously, I was able to catch the lens before it got lost, or torn. I placed it on the headboard where it wouldn't get knocked on the floor and where I would be able to retrieve it later. After I got up and had breakfast, I went back to get my contact lens and discovered it all dried out and shriveled up. On Friday morning I have early therapy, so I didn’t have time to mess around trying to resurrect my contact. I left it soaking in its case and went off to therapy.
For those who’ve never put in a contact lens, it requires extensive finger dexterity. Back in the old days, mine was a two-handed procedure, with the contact perched on the tip of the index finger of the hand corresponding to the eye in which I was attempting to insert the contact. The other fingers on that hand had the job of pulling my lower eye lid down. I would then use my opposite hand to reach over and hold my top eye lid open as wide as possible; pretty standard operating procedure, really, but nearly impossible with non-functioning fingers.

Over the course of the last three days, I've made several attempts to put the contact back in. Unfortunately, I'm now literally all thumbs, as those are my only fingers that extend without any special assistance. I’d place the contact on the end of my right thumb, and use my left hand to stabilize, resting my elbows on the edge of my sink, but every time I would get hung up on my long, dreamy eyelashes and the contact would turn inside out, maybe fall into the sink, my lap, or on the floor.

I tried numerous times until my eye was sufficiently bloodshot and irritated and then I’d quit. I just couldn’t get my eye open wide enough. This morning though, I decided to change my approach and use the thumb on my left hand to come underneath my right hand to pull my lower eye lid down. Thus, attempting to get the opening I needed to insert the contact.

I don’t know if the stars aligned properly at that exact instant or if I summoned enough of the Force to turn off my navi-computer, but it was as easy as riding a bike into an empty two-car garage. And what a difference in clarity! Two contacts is much, much better than one! Will I return to the days of taking my contacts out every night and putting them back in my eyes in the morning? Probably not, but at least now, if ever the need arises, I know it is physically possible.