Many of my friends have heard me talk about the surgery I had on my skull when I was a baby, some have seen my scar or felt my lumpy head. Well, my Mom scanned some photos and sent them to me tonight. Sagittal Synostosis is a condition in infants where the “soft spot” closes early and keeps the skull from growing side to side. The head can only grow front to back, giving the baby an elongated head.
Surgery is performed to remove a part of the skull and essentially create a new soft spot, allowing the head to grow properly. I was about 6 months old when I had my surgery.
Here are a few photos taken after my surgery, during my recovery:
My Mom has told me that after the surgery she was too afraid to hold me for fear of hurting me so my Aunt Sheryl, a nurse, held me first in the photo above.
Here I am being held by my very concerned Mother.
A month or so later, my hair had started to grow back and my scar had healed.
Sagittal Synostosis has no lasting side effects and it’s not something that really has any impact on my life. I had follow-up Doctor visits to make sure everything went smoothly but then that was it. I was too young to have any memories from this time, thankfully.
I do however have very vivid memories of dealing with Perthes Disease. You can find info on Perthes Disease on Wikipedia. To put it simply, Perthes Disease is degenerative disease where the hip joint starts to fall apart and lose mass. When I was a kid the treatment was a leg brace. I was 4 years old and wore it for a year, and Mom just sent me some photos today:
I don’t remember any pain, even though I apparently did experience some, but I do remember the frustration. I remember not being able to run or jump or play with the other kids on the McDonald’s playground. I remember walking like a penguin, hobbling side to side to get to my destination. I’ve heard the story many times of how my Grandfather cried when he first saw me in my brace. He’s told me the story many times, and it still seems to get to him all these years later.
I remember the day I finally got to take off my brace. My Doctor’s office was in a building that had a big open lobby, that went up several floors. It had this wide spiral staircase in the middle and after confirming with my Doctor I could indeed run and jump, I ran out of the office, jumped, skipped and headed for the stairs. I dragged my Mom up and down those stairs several times that day.
Well, there you go. I know more photos exist from both my surgery and my leg brace, but these are all that I have for now.
Well, here I am, back on the Interwebs. After 4 long months away I’m thrilled to be back in touch with the outside world. For my fellow geeks, I’m running a 20Gb DSL connection and am really happy with the speeds I’m getting.
On a further geeky note, I added some additional login options for my comments. You can now just login with Facebook or Twitter, so you have no excuses not to leave comments.
Now, on to the good stuff. Excuse me while I turn into a shrieking 12 year old girl…OMGSH ARE YOU WATCHING GLEE!!?!!??!1 I’ve fallen in love with this show. The pilot was excellent, the second episode was underwhelming, but since then they’ve recovered nicely. Jane Lynch alone made me interested in the show; I loved her on the short-lived Lovespring International and she’s just laugh out loud funny. Jane Lynch aside, there’s a really sweet gay character and my favorite of all, a fiercely fabulous black woman.
Warning: If you’re a straight male who watches football, hunts, drives a pickup truck, or thought Sarah Palin was a good idea and/or should hold any elected office then you probably won’t like Glee.
If you haven’t watched the show yet, do it before Hulu decides to pull it down.
There’s the light stuff. I’ll get to what’s really been going on in my life in a future post.
Tags: Entertainment, glee, Music, My News, television
So, I’ve heard from more than one person in the last week that I need to update my blog more often, so I felt I should explain my absence. I do not have Internet at home currently, so it’s pretty difficult to update my blog. Hopefully in the next couple of months I will have it back, so see you then!
Watch the video: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/13/police-brutality-cops-pun_n_203245.html
Is this happening more often or is the Internet just making us more aware of it? This police officer didn’t know he was on video, obviously. The kick in the head, then pushing the guys arm up way beyond where he needed to, then the high five…pretty disgusting.
I know the guy is a criminal and I know he’s a suspected gang member, but does this really help reform anyone? I believe this kind of behavior does nothing more than send more young kids into gangs and helps to create distrust and hate toward police officers in general.
From what I’ve read this officer hasn’t been disciplined or suspended yet, but I’ll update when I find out more.
Tags: Civil Rights, News, police brutality
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