Show me your scar and I'll show you mine...

I have a new appreciation and fascination with medical stories.

Anyone who's known me for any period of time knows I have always been squeamish about bodily interference. I passed out in the nurse's office in sixth grade following a nasty gash suffered at the business end of a linoleum carver in art class. In seventh grade I had to sit down on the curb of the strip mall parking lot after my knees buckled under the weight of my newly pierced ears. I sobbed so uncontrollably when a tetanus shot was administered that my mother was called in from the waiting room to deal with me. This was my college entrance physical. The people in the waiting room were stunned when an 18 year old emerged from the exam room with a pile of bunched up tissues and puffy eyes. I was 34 the first time I had blood drawn (not counting the finger pricks I had endured with great surrounding drama as a child).

But let me tell you, brain surgery has changed all that. I won't lie, I still don't love having blood drawn, but there have been some amazing transformations. The fact that I'm even contemplating the follow up surgery to have a snap implanted in my skull to anchor a hearing device onto my head speaks volumes (no pun intended). I've attended enough cocktail parties and dinners in other than museum-quiet settings to know that I will eventually have this surgery.

Beyond this, I seem to have passed comfort into fascination with all-things-medical. I ask inappropriately specific questions of friends - or even people I've just met - about procedures they've had done or are contemplating. I just wade right in and probe on the kinds of details I would have shunned in the past. I also have a new obsession: the plastic surgery makeover show on the Discovery Health channel. Have you SEEN this show? Amazing. There was a marathon on the other day - I could not tear myself away. [Update: I started writing this post last week before the death of Kanye West's mother following a tummy tuck and breast reduction. Did you know her doctor was the host of that Discovery Health show? Turns out he's not even board certified. What the hell!?]

Anyway, here's a story I heard recently that I find totally amazing. I don't know if it's truly fascinating or it's just my newly acquired taste for medically oriented tales that holds me rapt, but you be the judge.

I met two of my good friends for lunch the other day. They are a pair of creatives I worked with up until about 5 or 6 years ago - and I LOVED working with them. They still work together. I try my best to catch up with them from time to time. This was our first gathering since my surgery, so they were asking me lots of questions. Turns out, I'm not their only friend who's been through a recent major surgery, and they recounted this story to me...

Another friend of theirs faced a much more dire situation, but luckily is doing just fine now. This poor woman suffered from lung disease that necessitated a lung transplant. Indeed, she was lucky enough to be the recipient of an amazing act of generosity from a family in their own dire situation. After a successful transplant surgery and recovery, the patient reached out to meet the family. They hadn't sealed the records. Maybe they felt that meeting this person would help them feel their loved one had not died in vain.

During the emotional meeting, the family asked what kind of physical differences the patient was experiencing. She explained that other than the exhilaration of simply feeling healthy again, this lifelong dedicated organic-food worshiper had the odd side effect of an undeniable craving for the fish fillet sandwich at McDonald's. She was horrified to find she couldn't help but give in to the fast food urge once or twice a week.

Of course you can guess what I'm about to say. The girl who's lungs had been donated loved the fish fillet sandwich from McDonald's and ate it all the time.

I'm sure doctors could never explain this. But I think the good ones would not dispute it.

Five Week Status Report

The Five Week Status Report would look a lot like the Four Week Status Report. Instead of more boring details about exactly how many city blocks I can walk now, I thought I'd use this week's post to provide more boring details about this whole single sided hearing/single sided deafness business (I've seen it referred to both ways - but SSD seems more common. The glass half full/half empty debate rages on). A lot of you have expressed curiosity, so here's what I know so far.

As it turns out, SSD is not really that uncommon. In fact, many of you have already told me about other people you know personally who are deaf on one side. In the US, about 60,000 people per year become afflicted. It can have many causes such as viral infections, Meniere’s disease, trauma, measles, chicken pox or, as in my case, through surgical intervention.

The reality of being deaf on one side is very different from what I imagined it would be. I thought I would still hear everything, but maybe just a little lower on the old volume. The issues are a bit more complex.

First of all, there is a range of sound that occurs on my right side that I simply can't hear due to a phenomenon called the "head shadow effect." A creepy name. A friend articulated it better: "Oh, it's like an eclipse." Exactly. My head has become an object that literally blocks certain sound waves that originate on my deaf side from ever being perceived by my hearing side. Surgery has made me more obtuse than ever.

Secondly, the world has become a giant ventriloquist act to me. I have a lot of trouble determining the location from which a noise originates. If someone drops a book across the room on my right, I may reflexively turn to my left. I've become like a crazy person who constantly cocks their head to imagined noises saying, "Did you hear that?!" I keep thinking birds chirping outside my window are mice inside the apartment. Crazy person.

I also have a lot of trouble with multiple noise input. First of all, it just makes my head pound. I think that's a short term issue. But the likely long term effect is that I can't "prioritize." So if the TV is on and someone is speaking to me at the same time, I can't hear what they're saying. I am not able to prioritize the noise that I want to hear from another noise that I want to tune out. Conversations in a restaurant, for example, would be very difficult. Giant cacophony. (cute name for a cafe. no?) Note to those with knowledge of broadcast production: think of it as a completely fokakta mix with zero ability for adjustment.

According to all the depressing literature, people with SSD can experience issues with things like "crossing the street, bicycling or driving a car and may also have problems in group situations like business meetings, restaurants or cocktail parties." So as long as I always cross with the light and am satisfied with drinking alone, I'll be fine. In other words, my life won't change ;)

Time will tell how I cope with these issues and how debilitating they are in my particular case. If it seems advantageous, there are some remedies available to me thanks to modern technology. This is where that snap comes in. As mentioned in some previous posts, there is a device called a Baha that could be placed on my deaf side behind the ear via a snap implanted in the skull. It transfers sound through bone conduction, stimulating the cochlea in the normal hearing ear. Click this link to see an animated diagram that helps visualize this phenomenon:

http://www.entific.com/directBoneConduction.asp

(A quick side note. This diagram helps clear up another point a lot of people have found confusing. When you look at this, it's a little easier to understand why they had to cut through two bones to remove my tumor. This diagram is a cross section from the rear perspective. Those are the backs of someone's ears. First they cut a flap in the back of my skull, which is not shown in the picture. Then they moved my brain stem over revealing the skull base in the middle of my head. Then they sawed into that skull base to get inside the canal that houses my auditory nerve. My tumor had already bulbed out into my cranium, but they had to remove it from the source so as not to trash all the other nerves that run through that canal.)

The Baha device itself is wireless and apparently they are working on an updated model that would be Bluetooth enabled. I am 100% not kidding - I'd be able to pipe in my ipod or the TV directly to my head. I'm looking into whether I'd be able to host conference calls.

So let's just get to the source of all the curiosity. The snap. I mean, would I really have a snap on my head!? It sounds like a science fiction novel. Well, seeing is believing. Are you ready for a picture of the snap? I don't know if you're ready. I don't know if any of us could ever be ready, but here it is:



I will be hosting a Bluetooth enabled conference call in the future. The topic: Peripheral Snap Accessory Brainstorm Session/Things That Would Be Useful to Have Snapped To My Head. You'll all be invited and I'll send call in details. In the meantime, here are some thought starters:

• A cupholder
• A GPS system
• An Amex Xpress Pay - I can just swipe my head for payment
• A wrap around rear view mirror
• A head dust ruffle (would require another snap on my hearing side, but could add flair to drab outfits)
• A badge/ID holder - similar to Amex Xpress pay, head swipe for entry
• A bottle opener

I'm also going to look into whether I can use this for future face lifts. I could just have the bags under my eyes snapped back.

Other thoughts welcome.

Untethered

I went back to the hospital today for my post-surgical consult visit. It was very strange walking back into that place. I admit - I sort of felt like there should be a VIP entrance for brain surgery alums. Special parking? Velvet ropes? Volunteers telling me how much I rock? A small marching band - or at least a wind quartet? Come on, people! Work with me here,- I just had my head drilled open for #$%@'s sake!

Anyway - the sutures are out of both my head and abdomen. So that's good news. I also had a very interesting conversation with the Doc about the state of my hearing. It turns out there is a much more optimistic way to refer to being half deaf: single-sided hearing. How glass-half-full.

Apparently there is a bone-anchored hearing device that I will need to begin researching now that hearing loss is a reality. I had begun talking to some of you about that before - it will provide unending amusement for peripheral accessory possibilities. If I pursue it, I would literally have a snap embedded in my head onto which I can attach my own blue-tooth enabled hearing device to toss sound to my "good ear". I kid you not. Apparently, I could use my nano with no wires directly into my head. My friend Steve had long ago inquired whether I would be XM Satellite enabled, and I'm looking into this. I'm thinking this could lead to good party tricks (also, I would never again be mistaken about when baseball season starts).

I had a suture-free lunch at a restaurant across the street from the hospital (first public meal). I went in my pajamas - it was dark. They didn't care.

xo