Thus Spake Russ

Posted By Russ Emerson on January 9, 2008 at 2:40 pm

For those few folks who may have been wondering about how I’m doing since the surgery… well, I’ve been back at work (telecommuting, of course) since last week, since only five days after the second surgery, which might give an indication as to the relative rapidity of my recovery.
I have a pretty cool scar on my head, with lumpy bits of hardware underneath. It turned out that none of the installed hardware is any kind of memory upgrade. Dang. You’d think that a $5000 piece of hardware might have a little extra RAM thrown in. I guess not.
The entry point on my abdomen is healing up again after they “unzipped” it for the followup surgery. Still looks bad, but it should be fully healed in a week or so.
I’m walking around the house on just a cane about 95% of the time, reverting to crutches only when my legs are too stiff or sore or tired… none of which is really unexpected, given such a long period of non-use. I also still use the crutches when leaving the house, but that’s mostly a safety issue; better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.
I can occasionally take a few steps unsupported. No, that’s not quite right… I don’t use the cane for support, but for balance, as a second point of contact when I pick one foot up off the floor. WIth the cane, I’m moving pretty well, but I’m still rather wary of falling over. So far, though, no accidents.
Basically, I’m back to where I was in about May of last year, and still improving. I don’t know how much improvement there will be, but I really do not expect I’ll ever be back to 100% — I suspect there is some nerve damage here. Still, I’m waaay better than I was five weeks ago, and improving rather than declining. I may end up (as I have sort of suspected I might) using a cane permanently, but I can live with that, considering the alternative.
Finally, my hair is growing back. Every time I cut it all off, I get a little concerned that it might just give up and refuse to grow back. Thus far, though, only the hair on the top of my head has done so. The remainder is coming along just fine.

Categories: Health & Disability
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