As many people know, I suffered a few facial fractures back in 2006. The primary result of that incident was to put my cheekbone slightly out of alignment, as well as the complete destruction of the bone under my left eye (other than maybe a 1mm ledge on one side, there's literally nothing there any more). I had one surgery back in 2006 to put my eye back in the right place. It improved things slightly, but still left me with a droopy eye and some residual double vision. About six months later the surgeon did a CT scan, which ultimately looked like this: The surgeon concluded at the time that ...

Just got back from my appointment this morning. Some lady spent 20 minutes giving me impromtu eye tests, and measuring my face and eye positions. There's one tool they use to measure eye displacement which is actually slightly painful because they force it to sit on the edge of your eye socket and press it there. Unfortunately, my left orbital bone is slightly out of place so it's hard to get an accurate measurement using that device. Anyways, once I finally talked to the surgeon, he basically indicated that another surgery at this stage is probably too risky. He said even though the end result ...

A few weeks ago I received a phone call, the purpose of which was ultimately to talk about some of the injuries I obtained as a result of the incident in November of 2006. During that call, I was asked if I had ever applied for compensation to the BC Victim's Assistance Program, which I hadn't even heard of to be honest. The BC Victim's Assistance Program is a government run program meant to help people who were the victims of violent crimes move on with their lives. It provides financial compensation for people due to medical expenses, time off work, counseling services, and lost income potential, ...

My first MRI was actually fair bit shittier than I imagined. I got to the hospital about 40 minutes before my scheduled time, and went to the Jim Pattison pavilion (like I was told). Unfortunately, there was no MRI facility in the JPP, and at that hour there wasn't really anyone to ask. I found an information kiosk that showed a MRI lab in the Centennial Pavilion, so I hurried down there and took a seat in the waiting room. Of course, there wasn't anyone in the reception booth so I just sat in the corner hoping that it was the correct place. There were a few other people in the waiting room with ...

I just did a quick check of my Google calendar for the week, and it's look pretty jam packed for the next few weeks. Things start off with a bang tomorrow -- I have to go to St. Paul's Hospital for some intestinal tests in the morning, and head down to Vancouver General Hospital tomorrow evening for an MRI (two hospitals in one day people, good times). Just did some reading on an MRI, and it's not a very dangerous procedure, unless you have certain types of implants in your eye socket. I'm fairly certain mine is ok, otherwise we wouldn't be going ahead with this, but I've seen one too many TV ...

Just got a call from Vancouver General Hospital. Turns out in just a few weeks I'll get the privilege of relaxing inside a big metal tube for an hour down in the MRI clinic. Apparently I can wear my own clothes, as long as there isn't any metal on them at all. Otherwise the metal will probably rip out and go crazy in the huge magnetic fields. The good news is that MRI's don't use radiation, which means my super powers will probably not be affected this round (I figure with all the CT scans and X-rays I had last year, I've had my share). Should be a fun time, staring at the inside of a tube while ...

I just got back from an appointment with my plastic surgeon. After two surgeries, I am still left with a few problems, the first of which is a slight visual dissimilarity between my left and right eye, and the second is double vision above my mid line. Based on some recent measurements I had done, my surgeon proposed four courses of action: Do nothing Remove a bit of skin from eyelid on my "good" eye to make it sort of match the appearance of my "bad" eye Adjust the eyelid of my "bad" eye to make it better match my "good" eye. Open me back up and either ...

This is a pretty important week in the life of Duane. On Tuesday I'll meet up with my plastic surgeon which might potentially be the last meeting I have with him regarding this whole affair. My first meeting was about twelve months ago and resulted in two surgeries to my eye socket. I've spent this last year bouncing between doctors offices, getting eye exams, several CT scans, and will meet this week to probably wrap everything up. In terms of my vision, it's still not perfect. I see pretty much everything perfectly below the midline (i.e. looking straight or down), but as I look up I tend to ...

Today was a strange day. I woke up this morning and went down to the clinic to get the results of some tests I had done this week. If you've been keeping up with my saga, I somehow got a digestive infection when I was in the hospital with pneumonia a few months ago. It's not contagious or anything - about 10% of people in the hospital get it after a week, and over 50% of people generally get it after four weeks in a hospital. You typically don't get this unless your body is hit with a really hard broad-spectrum anti-biotic, which in my case was clyndamycin in the hosital. This type of antibiotic ...

Today I had a specialist appointment to fully quantify the damage to my vision from my accident last year. The appointment was about an hour of waiting in the waiting room, twiddling my thumbs, and an hour of experiments. They were forced to dilate my eyes, which means not only am I totally sensitive to light right now, but I'm having a very hard time reading anything. Not sure the verdict, but it's looking pretty likely that my double vision in my upgaze is probably permanent. I can potentially compensate for this by changing my eyeglass prescription to have a slight upward taper in the lens, ...

Nearly one year ago today, four guys that I had never met before decided it would be a good idea to put my face through the plate glass window of a 7-11. Prior to that one moment in time, now forever etched into my memory, I was upstairs at the Railway Club in Vancouver, enjoying a few beers with some friends in celebration of their wedding earlier that night. Upon exiting the building, somewhere between catching a cab and eating a bag of nachos, I overheard these four guys harassing a bunch of girls just a few feet away from me. People have told me after the fact that perhaps I should have just ...

As I said in my last entry, I am now at home recoupering from what is hopefully my last surgery to correct the damage from November. I'll go through a quick walk through of yesterday. I woke up around 10am and basically just tried to kill some time until I was supposed to be at the hospital. I was originally going to take a cab down there at around 12:30pm, but it was such a nice day out that I decided to just walk the whole distance myself. Surprisingly, it only took me a half hour. Once I got there, everyone was immediately friendly. Even though I had to answer a pile more questions that I had ...

I'm not up to writing a full blog entry, but just wanted to let everyone know I made it home and that I'm recovering. The whole hospital procedure was far harder on me this time than last time, and I still feel really shaky. Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel alot better. ...

Today I headed out to The University of British Columbia for an appointment with Dr. Kevin Bush, one of the best plastic surgeons (who specializes in cranial-facial reconstruction) in the province. I had some time to kill, so I spent 30 minutes just walking around enjoying the sunshine, reminiscing about the nearly eight years I spent wandering around the campus. It's really weird being on campus in the summer. Most students don't really have a chance to see the rose garden in full bloom, or enjoy campus life when the weather is nice out (since the school year coincides with the bad weather seasons ...

As of this moment, I am officially "on call" for my next surgery at St. Paul's hospital. I was hoping that I would have gotten the call on Sunday night for a Monday morning surgery (I just want it over with), but unfortunately I still haven't had the call yet. I won't be able to eat for twelve hours prior, so I'm pretty much guaranteed to get at least that much notice. It would be nice if they could give more notice than that, but apparently the hospitals are rather busy, and it's difficult to book them in advance. Photo by jekemp on Flickr (click photo to view) My dad has a change ...

Ever since my injury in November, I have spent quite a bit of time in hospitals, doctor's offices, and medical clinics. Part of those visits usually involves some interaction with medical students. And while I'm certain that there really are good medical students out there who are passionate about helping people and eager to learn more in their field, almost every single medical student I've encountered has been both arrogant and misinformed, a deadly combination when you're trying to help people who are sick or have undergone significant trauma. My first encounter came sometime around November ...

I met with my plastic surgeon this morning, and as I thought, we're going to go ahead and do another surgery. The apparent source of my problem seems to be that the ledge that was supporting the implant ended up not being very stable, and the implant has collapsed slightly along with my eye. Also, there is slight herniation of some of orbital contents into my sinus near the back, which is most likely the source of my double vision. The good news is that it should be nearly 100% fixable. They are going to put in another larger implant, and probably secure it using microscrews (sounds so exciting ...

I just got back from St Paul's hospital where I picked up the data from my second CT scan. For those people living in a cave, last November some guys tooled me pretty good outside a bar and ended up fracturing several bones in my face, including the orbital floor of my left eye. What this basically meant is that there was little to no support for my left eyeball in my left socket. That was November 4th. On November 22, I went in for plastic surgery to correct the defect under my eye and put my eye back to its proper position. They do this by sticking in a plastic sheet that is meant to hold the ...

I had an appointment this morning with an eye specialist to go over the last CT scan I had a few weeks ago. Prior to the CT scan, I was told that my double vision would probably be permanent, and the displacement of my eye may not be completely fixable. However, apparently the CT scan shows that the bottom muscle of my eye is depressed into the silastic implant that was put in back in November. So basically, that muscle isn't moving freely and is contributing to my double vision and cosmetic differences between my two eyes. The good news is that they think they can do something about it. That ...

This afternoon at 4:30pm I have yet another CT scan down at St. Paul's Hospital. I've been waiting for this one nearly a month now, so it will be nice to finally have it done. I've been told I can't eat for at least four hours before the scan, so apparently this banana bread is my only meal until supper time. I'm not sure if they are putting some funky dye into my blood, but I'll know in a few hours I guess. Update -- Ok, so it's all over now. I got down to St Paul's at around 4:15pm and just chilled in the waiting area for a while. At around 4:35, some lady calls me up and walks me into the room ...