The Book of Joshua P!!

(Just a quick note I wanted to add today. It’s been exactly a month since what I’m beginning to call "the incident". People are calling it my attack, or accident, and some are even telling me it’s my fault. For the latter, who like to blame the victim… I won’t feel anger for you, only sadness that you have so far to go in your life before you can enjoy it.)

First, news: the www.AntiViolence.US campaign is still going full steam ahead. Keep checking back on there to see the new, AWESOME stuff that is being given to us to raffle… comic book fans, rockers, sci-fi freaks, and anyone who likes art or electronic music will probably wet themselves over at least one thing up for grabs. We have just confirmed entries from Cleopatra records and from Sideshow Collectibles that are unbelievable, nay, when you find out what they are you will realize that are valuable enough to be considered "priceless" in the best way! The first date we have confirmed is August 21st at the Key Club, and we also have a date close to confirmation for July 7th in Seatlle. Many other cities are looking to host their own events as well in the name of AntiViolence. Please, post that URL everywhere you can.

Well, I still have braces on my teeth, which cut the living crap out of the inside of my mouth now that I can open it a little… I got the wiring taken off of my mouth!  I am so very happy about this… I went for my follow up yesterday and they said that I had healed "just enough" to take the wires that bind my jaws together off… we tried to go last week, but some guy was super high on drugs and trying to pick fights with other patients… totally crazy, but this worked out better since if we had stayed, the next follow up would have been in three weeks and they wouldn’t have taken off the wires a week ago.

Such a mouthful. Speaking of which, I still can’t eat "real" food, but I am on what is affectionately called the "mashed potato" diet. Soft old people foods that don’t require teeth and / or could be swallowed whole. My first "meal" was some udon brother and little bits of of rice and tiny pieces of Maguro / tuna sashimi, and I mean tiny ! It was a taste of heaven. Life is getting better in that aspect.

The mediocre and kind of silly news is that my voice is about an octave higher now! My old Vader-voice was too bass-y to make it through my teeth so I trained myself to talk at a higher pitch in order to be heard, something noone notices when you "talk through the grill". I am actively re-learning how to speak properly again, and also having a constant battle with re-training my jaw not to clench up. This will get better, but it’s gonna take time.

But, oh… there is horrible news. Apparently, I am going to need more surgeries than originally thought, and I’ll probably have to use nose spray every morning and night for the REST OF MY LIFE to have any semblance of normal breathing. UGHH. That’s the noise I make every day when I wake up thinking I’m suffocating.

So, on the horizon, I have a definite re-do of surgeries I had when I was younger:

Deviated Septum Repair: Had this when I was 16 or 17 and it really helped.. no it was not for cosmetic reasons, I’ve never had cosmetic surgery…(warning: grossness) My left nostril where you can see the cartilage actually passes air sorta OK, but the right one is much more resticted in airflow. This was knocked back out of wack and is in the way again. They may need to re-break my nose to do this if the parameters are too far off.

Cryo-Turbinectomy: Whatever hit my face so hard and so many times fractured my sinuses, and the internal shape of them is really messed up, and nothing can be done to fix this other than try to alleviate problems symptomatically, since I am a grown adult. A cryo-turbinectomy goes in and sorta "mines" out the sinus tissue in there to clear some sort of path for air. I had several of these when I was really young, between the ages of 6 and 10, and, with the repaired septum, was breathing FANTASTICALLY until my attack. Basically, they go in, freeze all the tissue in your sinuses cryogenically, and scrape it out. Bloody, painful, and not fun for anyone of any age. They’ll probably have to re-break my nose for this as well.

Various Orthodonture: When I was in Fourth grade, I was taught a valuable lesson about humanity. If you’re good at anything, other people will try to hurt you instead of just trying to compete nicely. I was tripped while playing basketball, and my face hit asphalt, leaving a chunk of my front tooth in a playground in Germany and misaligning a few other teeth. I had to wear a wire for a few months so the teeth would grow in straight; luckily I was young. UGGH. (again!) That same tooth was broken even more this round of being picked on along with jacking up and chipping a bunch of my other teeth, misaligning my jaw, and god knows what else. I can’t even see a dentist until I get the braces off from the Maxillofacial Surgeons at King Drew that are making sure my "face bones" are healing OK.

Who knows what other damage was done? Life is becoming a long list of referrals and appointments and consultations and generally just a sucking void of daily grinding my nose to the stone to get anything at all done. My neck really hurts still… I woke up with some sort of pinched nerve feeling in my back… My collarbone is still tender and sore… My spirit… well, who knows if that could ever be fixed? I’m afraid, and panicky, and emotionally sensitive most of the time… I have sneaky fears about what kind of therapy it’s going to take to feel normal again. Will they ask me to take drugs? i don’t want to be on Prozac or some other type thing…

Oh well… off to go fight all those neat battles that those that can speak fight.

…in the meantime, tell everyone you can about http://www.antiviolence.us/.

THANKS!!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2005 at 2:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.