Kill Kuato

Saturday, December 02, 7:48 PM – marco

ok…from follow up MRI–it is now Friday and I am in Home state.
-WE left the hosp-then to the hotel, rested then we drove SantaMonica freeway to LA then over the hollywood hills into Riverside to a nice new MRI office. i’ll get the name later.. was a nice place. and they even offered earplugs-even though my left did not need one. (CWH in Wenatchee did not even offer earplugs. You DO NOT want to be Lucid -have a mental status of a 5 1-5 scale while going in because you tend to listen to every single knock and ping-and it throws you into a 45 minute industrial wave like music concert without END…the scene of Jimmy Stewart falling out the window-first pre op MRI I had that Dxed kuato was in October-was very bad. This time my Mental status was very low so I just dozed and tranced off. from 1-5 throughout dc from hospital and after MRI I was at a 2.8. I pretty much mumbled @ Shahinians post op.

So ya lets talk about LOC or Level of Consiousness.in EMS and I’m sure in the OR they used the http://www.trauma.org/scores/gcs.html I will just use a simple version of 1-5. 1 is that I am out drooling like a vegetrbal and 5 I am lucid and talking. so all morning pre op I am 5 joking laughing with the staff-then o2 is on, im laughing at a 5-then shoot down to a 0 for 12 hrs. then woke up at about a level 1. creeping death. slowly going up and down the ladder (this is when nurses are wiping your ass and you don’t care, catheter etc). my days crawled by from Mond 6pm after surgery to DC at 1030 on Thurs. They rolled me out in a wheel chair, I was about a 2.75 getting to the hotel. Thank God for AntiVERT!

Slept nice night at hotel and left for LAX last night around 7pm. they wheeled me to the flight in a chair. I didnt want to but mommy insisted. I was am still getting visual tracking down with 2 eyes and 1 ear instead of 2×2-and walking even though you look blind is better to train your gait instead of wheeling around in a chair-makes you dizzy.
We get into the plane and I just tranced out. snailed back to a 2.8 eyes closed- the type of look that makes others touch your shoulder and say “you ok”.

The flight was uneventful except for my imagination letting loose like everyones probably does-what if we crash-why is the hostess concerened about the glass “becoming a missle” if we are all falling into the ocean..what if a one of those yellow oxy bags falls on my head..hey wiat sir I get to go to the bathroom first because I just had a brain operation-but hell what the concern if we are all flailing in slowmotion waiting to impact anyway-then just a calming equalizing thought of death as we were up to around maybe 400 mph on the ground belly tipping up to the sky-and I-ready to hit a wall.

boom we were liftoff-then my friend James came to mind who was working for NASA-hughes at the time that Alaska Airline fell into the ocean a few years before, I recalled him giving me a talk your ear off scientific reason for the back tip wing falling off when I just imagined a childhood balsawood airplane back wing fitting wrong-then the lady asked me what I would like to drink and we were on our way to seattle.

I thought alot of death that flight and let my mind “go there”-reminiscing on the tv shows that were in my recovery room. http://au.movies.yahoo.com/Inside+I’m+Dancing/movie/12522/trailers/ blew me away and after watching documentary about IEDs in Iraq-where first 3 amputations get triaged to care and the others within the blast wave look fine-and resend them back with their platoon-but have sustained TBIs-memory loss and such. kind of humbled me. then a 18 yo on a cane with a fake eye that was maybe 14 seeing the towers fall-made me think there will always be someone worse than me. like that metallica song “one”-no limbs no sight no hearing-always somebody in worse condition. makes me feel better.
http://tinyurl.com/y63wwe

I need to go. “my head hurts”.

Thursday, November 30, 1:21 PM

thanks eric.
I am back, my lucidity is not so this may be blurry. I am slow mo now. typing slow.
got dced from hospital this morning. shahinian came in at about 7am, did some eye tracking excersises. sore eyes. I cant tear up on my left eye nor saliva left side.
he said it was a success, with traditional aproach-facial paralysis left side. so im happy. my grin and eyebrow lift is weaker on left…

so….heres what i remember as i try not to pass out.

the darn forum I belong to got me psyched up for this like i was going to a football game all happy n shit, yeahehae im getting a drill in my head bring it on yahoo.me and my wife were escorted into “the basement” and we were in a surgery prep room with sheets dividing, one other black guy was in their with me, some slavic lady boot on a goofy blue hat on me and bootie slippers, as the gregorian chant music was going ovre the speakers, welcoming us or preparing us to go to heaven or something.

nurse came to me introduced himself. looked chinese later found out was salvadoran, met a big white guy that was my facial nerve monitor, then a young ass anestesiologist, that looked 25 yo. asked questions-allergies etc.

they then wheeled me into a green tile walled old school OR that looked like something in guatemala.the anest put 02 on my face and I was joking in salvadoran slang with 2 salvy OR nurses, and told them “no me mandas la ciguanaba“-they laughed hard. Salvadoran legend joke.

Then BOOM I woke up at 6pm wigging out in a bed at 45degrees filipina nurse attending me couldnt sleep all night long, my arterial IV in my had came out wo me knoeing squirting all over, she had to wipe the blood off the bed.

I had artery lead in my left foot with vein, and artery lead in left hand, maybe other area. to monitor BP during operation.

vertigo was worst, eye tracking in peripheral vision of following my finger up to scratch my face put me into hurlandia. and threw up not much nothing, I mightve left the sunday night lasagna that had at daves on the floor of the or or crapped my diapers wo knowing. its a mystery where that bowel movement ran off too.

at2 i called the nurse accidently turning on the TV withjerrry springer crowd yyellins woowooowoohwoowhowwyoow, spun me into vertigo then auto bp cuff pressure started pumpin up, was vertigo land, was really bad.

shahinian stopped by at 4am, said hi, did facial motor verification, mouth eyelift weaker on left side, no tearing or saliva yet tumor was 5cm from internal ear canal pressing on brain stem cerebellum. and since its not there my stem is swinging back to vacant space, and that probably blended with vestibular nerve being gone(balance and hearing, my whole tracking is off eye-gait walking and will take time to line up.

first night our of or i slept maybe every 10 minutes, long ass night. w2nd night was about 30 minutes. then they decided to extend stay at hosp for vertigo probs.

Got a great laugh at the irony of turning on the TV again and it was a soap opera hospital scene unconscious with a creep staring in the windo, watched the nurse leave, snuck in, grabbed a pillow-yeah u know the scene. I laughed hard. The Simpsons helped too, and the Spanish version TV show of REPO man, pretty good and funny. then a weird ton of documentaries about traumatic brain injuries from iraq, from IEDs, memory loss, should’ve died stuff, young like 18-20 yolds. show called californiaconnection.com good journalism. then it was law and order special victims unit, some kid in a fantasy video game world, helping an abused black foster sister that was murdered by an evil caregiver for “peeing her pants” that got me prepped for some good ol HBO Scarface! just watched the scene where the guy gets thrown dangling from the helicopter, and last half of the chainsaw scene where he already starts to escape and shoots the Colombian in the street-then me and my parents watched the end firefight scene, my mom was disturbed but my dad and I watched it through. empowered me a bit watching how many bullets he took at the end and was still kicking.

so ya yesterday was wed. I think i watched tv till am channel surfing through another repeat of scarface and dozed, felt a lil queezy at 3am , and they dced me today at about 10 after qwik wipedown. i need to go now, follow up mri at 230

Wednesday, November 29, 9:46 PM – Eric

Was able to spend more time today with Marco before heading back home. Great change from yesterday. Marco seemed himself, completely animated and talking non-stop. He’s pretty mobile able to make his way around the “block.”

The biggest issue he’s going to have to adjust to is having no hearing anymore in his left ear.

Looking good, Marco! Now we as his family and friends have to remind him to take his time getting heatlhy again and not rush things.

Tuesday, November 28, 2:18 PM – Eric

Just saw Marco laying at a 45 degree in a bed that looks a foot too small for him. Very talkative and lucid. Telling me about a guy who was screaming in the middle of the night. Having one of his IVs fall out spurting fluid all over the place during the night and the nurse having to clean him up. The joy of having his catheter removed :p

I was expecting Marco to be all pale and lifeless but he looked good to me. Talkative as usual. He’s eager to try and get out of the bed later today for a change from laying down for the last 24+ hours.

Addendum by Marco-

Ya Eric, the dude was yelling from the other room, “My Hands!, I can’t feel my hands”!

Monday, November 27, 7:18 PM – Eric

Just got back from the hospital. Marco is completely out like a light snoring away. He looks great to me and he doesn’t even have a bandage around his head. He should be lucid enough to talk tomorrow.