Tag Archive for: surgery

No More Painkillers cover
NO MORE PAINKILLERS: After successful surgery, I’m off of painkillers for the first time in seven years.

Welcome to What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast, “No More Painkillers”

It’s a big day for me because I’m finally free of trigeminal neuralgia pain after successful rhizotomy surgery last month. It’s been seven years that I’ve been battling the disease and it feels like a major victory.

  • Shoutouts to Jersey Girl who told me about the Superfest Disability Film Festival happening in Berkeley & San Francisco later this month.
  • Claude Hopper wrote in to say he had a Chubb Rock record
  • Year Of The Tiger by Alice Wong
  • I sent Original Flavor to Amazon for restocking
  • Help support the kids’ school fundraiser by using this link to look through the catalog. for chocolates
  • ICYMI: I recommend the Gary Cannone Interview Special
  • I’m off pills and in withdrawal again – but its GOOD- I can go to my right better and stand on my own 2 feet’ easier
  • I am tolerating alcohol a little better so i can split a bottle of wine with dinner
    • Knock on wood- famous Last words- throwing triple hexes over my left shoulder
  • I am not adult enough to appear in a zoom meeting
  • Musk is back at it
  • A picture is worth a lot of these
  • “Last night for dinner” Journal: Cauliflower pasta
  • We’re going to the ranch

This Week’s Selfie

No More Painkillers selfie
It’s wild
cover
I am getting ready for surgery.

Welcome to the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast Season 6, Episode 34, “Pre-op”

In this episode I’m getting ready to go into Stanford next week for surgery to help with trigeminal neuralgia. In the meantime, the kids are playing soccer, there’s heat dome, and the podcasts that kids are making.

  • Shout outs to mom who wrote in to make a correction that she was not actually a Registered nurse
  • But I tell people that she was so so I guess if you’re one of them watch out you’ve been fooled
  • geographical shout outs
  • My daughter Told me she doesn’t understand the rules of soccer.
  • It was been really hot in California because there was a heat dome,
  • You heard it here 1st
  • It’s been over 90゚ so I’ve skipped 3 soccer practices. It was over a 100 for 1 of them so we all skipped that 1.
  • I’m reminded of the episode where it was really hot in East San Jose and I discussed how it was like my thoughts bubble through my brain like mud
  • It’s a lot cooler in San Leandro and I am surviving this heat wave a lot easier because I live in a shady area That is Naturally cooler
  • I think that is a big value of this house that I stay away from Uhthoff’s effect
  • My thoughts don’t get stuck in my brain, instead they come out, case in point
sent in by Claude Hopper, Anti rock stacker image
  • In the morning my wife says Hi Like a deflating ziploc bag And sad trombone. And I’m like Hi whats up in a loud stern voice and she answers nothing! In a golem voice
  • Snapshot of our relationship
  • We laughed talking about it in the car after we dropped the kids off at school. how we come at it different
I ran a poll on Twitter and it got one reply and I wasn’t allowed to Vote
  • Seemed like It was 100 degrees all last week and it’s 73 today
  • I avoided Uhthoff’s effect. The Saturday games were on artificial turf. It was steamy out and still pretty sunny. I used my wheelchair. I wore a panama hat bc i had a family event
  • Saturday tripleheader- the kids played soccer games. koko was first in hayward, then john john in union city, then we went to san jose for a family BBQ
  • i had my preop- next week they’ll stab my face and fry my trigeminal nerve. i think they might keep me awake
  • if it is successful ill be able to come off all these pain meds. its called titrating where every week ill come off one more pill. itll take a few months to get off all of them but im cautiously optimistic
  • been getting into the Delaware Dan podcast. its very unorganized and im not sure if it has a topic or not./ i found it by searching google podcasts for the word cassette tape. you can really go dfown a rabbit hole. kids are makiung podcasts for themselves. also shoutouts to roast of your teenage self podcasts
  • these are podcasts by young people and its great. im anm old person who makes a podcasts about nothing or if you have to say its about anything, its aboiut having a horrible disease and crazy surgical procedures. its probably better and more accurate to say its about nothing
  • wrap up
  • kahlil gibran on children

This week’s selfie:

pre-op selfie
Radiant in yellow
cover
Doors are being installed at our house- I went to see the surgeon- I had a nightmare about Thanksgiving.

Welcome to What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast Season Six, Episode 29, “Doors Of Perception.”

In this episode, the door men are at my house installing the Doors Of Perception. They are noisy, but because I’m feeling better, I don’t have to whisper anymore. I was still feeling pretty tough yesterday when I went to see the surgeon to discuss RF Rhizotomy surgery.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Shout Outs

  • Geographical shout outs
  • Shout outs to rocky
  • Shout out to Mom who reminded me that it’s been 2 and a 1/2 years since I have MVD micro vascular decompression surgery not 1-1/2
  • Shout outs to Doctor Shuer, who’s already operated on me twice. Isn’t that enough? We’ll see, just stay tuned..

The Church

  • Mom was trying to get me to be thankful for that time, and I am, but I also would appreciate my surgeon putting an end to this disorder and putting me out of pain. Trigeminal neuralgia is very painful and causes many who have it to commit suicide by how painful it is and I just don’t ever want to be in the place I was before or even being close to it.
  • Trigeminal neuralgia took me to the house of pain, where I went into the white hot room of pain and took a seat on the sofa of pain.
  • While I am thankful. I need to get this done with for my family. Shout out to Mom, she’s a Catholic and was taught to be thankful for everything in life and I kind of agree with her. I must admit I can be sympathetic to that. Because everything is here for me and I didn’t do it and I should be thankful for it- OK fine fine

  • Dear God, please let’s segue

Pronouns

  • I think it’s fine to call someone whatever they want to be called.
  • Sanleandrido, Sanlandrida, Sanleandridx.

  • Getting thoroughly cursed out is triggering and toxic that’s what it’s all about.

Thanksgiving nightmare

  • I had a nightmare that it was Thanksgiving and the butcher shops were all out of turkey.

The Cure Is: Lemons

  • One of my friends sent me 1 of these “they’ve cured MS in Canada” Messages and it’s totally unprovable and not linked to any study And it’s kind o,f like the MS cure Where you eat a lot of lemons. Generally I ask my family not to send me MS cure ideas that are like that. I believe in peer reviewed studies And without that you’re kind of just shooting in the dark.. So generally I ask people not to send me things that are unsupported by scientific study.
  • But frankly it was nice to be thought of and I told the guy I appreciate it. So how’s that for mixed messages?

Hot Mops

Dr. Shuer

  •  I went to see the doctor earlier today but before that at 8:30am i had a CT scan so I didn’t eat breakfast.
  • A CT scan is way chiller than an MRI- you’re still mostly in the roam because the hole that you’re in is way bigger
  • In MRI, you are inside the machine- for CT, it’s not even like you’re inside something. MRI has a 50-60CM aperture. CT scan has an aperture of 75-85cm. CT is shorter and quieter.
  • Then we had 45 minutes between appointments so i got the peanut butter Jamba Juice quick before I met the doctor. to get calories because I didn’t have breakfast.
  • My doctor and I discussed RF rhizotomy: they would put me to sleep, insert a needle into my face, then wake me up, send electrical signals through the needle to verify the right nerve, and then blast it with the high frequency RF to deaden the nerve.
  • It’s a short procedure but its freaky. were going to schedule it and if I don’t need it I wont have it
  • The Story of signing the consent form and how I wrote my signature.
  • We talked about how it could reduce my use of pain medication.

Baby Wants To Drive

  • My wife and I talked about how I cant drive on my current medicine dosage. That is upsetting, it’s like I’m a baby. I want to drive, but I can barely get around my house. It’s a loss of independence. I don’t know how I wont go stir crazy.

Los Pericos Vibe

  • We ate at Los Pericos on East 14th St. Nami had the vegetarian burrito & I had pozole. It was pretty good. It came with radishes cabbage and onion to dump in and a lime to squeeze over everything and it came together nicely.
  • I used my wheelchair to order the food and to eat. it was the first time I did that. it was on a pedestrian mall on a Tuesday at lunchtime. It was mostly empty, except for a guy who muttered to himself. He would come up in volume as we dropped down. He was talking about real motherfuckers and fake motherfuckers. He sounded upset about it. in a sense he was really killing the vibe. in another sense its a free country isn’t it? one mans vibe is another mans jibe! then his friend showed up and he was a lot happier. but then they were catcalling women.

BK To The Fullest

  • If you woke up today and you were an adult male named Brooklyn.

Part about cursing

  • Sometimes I deserve to be cursed out and sometimes I don’t and when I don’t, maybe I should just walk away and hope for better next time. Perhaps I could avoid ridiculing the person trying to come at me. which is what I often do because I think I’m not afraid of confrontation.
  • Maybe I should just take a wait and see and find out whether it is a pattern, whether I have a toxic person on my hands. Maybe there are extenuating circumstances.

This Week’s Selfie:

selfie
“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.” ― William Blake
cover
Two years after my MVD surgery, checking in with how I’m feeling. Also: tattoo ideas, gettin’ paleolithic, different chorizos.

Get The Whole Story: Please check the Microvascular Decompression tag page to hear all the updates about my MVD surgery.

  • last borscht thing: Matt came over and had lunch and he said “it was the best borscht I’ve ever had.” Nami was there
  • not like he’s Lithuanian or anything.
  • I think Lithuanians eat it cold
  • Steve was talking about white borscht
  • Shout outs to Nathan Mary Butters and Tibby- thanks for the catnip hot sauce
  • Very Stable Genius is a good neck tattoo
  • I went to reddit to see if there were any posts about Epstein-Barr causation and there was only one in the Multiple Sclerosis forum and the study was met with an ambivalent reaction
  • We had white beans, kale, and dry chorizo stew. i talked to the butcher about the dry chorizo — joe: “is it chorizo, or is it choriz?”
  • “I’m in recovery again” update to my 2nd surgery in January 2020 – meds- relapses- where I’m at now
  • in Omicron isn’t milder for everyone I canceled my dental appointment but i just had it. I wore two masks for the first time
  • At the periodontist’s office all the doors are open because Covid so you hear everything- gross!
  • Thank you
  • Printer Poem
CLICK FOR TRANSCRIPT

Get The Whole Story: Please check the Microvascular Decompression tag page to hear all the updates about my MVD surgery.

  • I saw the surgeon who performed my microvascular decompression surgery.
  • I went to my Ukrainian dentist a couple of weeks ago, she is the one I called, “The Iron Curtain.” 
  • I am not in trigeminal neuralgia pain anymore , and my life has changed for the better.
  • Now that I can shave my face, I’ve been wearing a mustache.
  • I am a lot happier.

Get The Whole Story: Please check the Microvascular Decompression tag page to hear all the updates about my MVD surgery.

I had microvascular decompression surgery to alleviate trigeminal neuralgia, and now I’m in recovery again.

CLICK FOR TRANSCRIPT

Get The Whole Story: Please check the Microvascular Decompression tag page to hear all the updates about my MVD surgery.

S3 E15 Notes
Notes

So they were like, “Something is weird. We got to put the EKG on him.” But I’m like a hairy individual, you know? So they got out the trimmers, they’re like, “What?” They’re just like, “What do we do?” … she says to me, she’s like, “Don’t worry. After we’re done, I’ll shave the rest.” I’m like, “Hell no you won’t shave the rest of my chest. Are you kidding?” I think of my chest hair a little bit like Samson, you know what I mean? Stay away from that. Come on, give me a break.

Read more

Get The Whole Story: Please check the Microvascular Decompression tag page to hear all the updates about my MVD surgery.

What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast Season 3, Episode 14 Excerpt: “Flapping My Arms”

One thing I did notice about the last episode is that I’m flapping my arms again. I first figured out of it about flapping my arms in episode five:

“and this is kind of joking, I guess. I get nervous, you know. You know, if you ever see me like making fart noise or flapping my arms, you know, somebody very close to me has died.”

What it means, basically that. When I’m flapping my arms again, you know I’m scared. I make jokes, it’s because I’m scared.

Read transcript

Trigeminal neuralgia hurts like hell. I’m going to have micro vascular decompression surgery, get out of pain, get off these pain medications, and contribute to my family again.

I signed up to have surgery. They’re going to pop a hole in my skull and operate on my trigeminal nerve. It’s called micro vascular decompression surgery.

Read more