Where to begin... Graduated from AVC Spring '09 with Deaf Studies AA and AutoCAD Drafting AS. Didn't have all transfer units completed, so I knew I would have to take one more semester at AVC (joy). A day or so before my birthday (May), I went to my allergist for my yearly evaluation/checkup. Doc noticed both nasal passages completely inflamed and plugged my nose up tight (air tight). Usually, this would be from a sinus infection and would clear up once the weather/plants weren't in cahoots to kill me. According to him this wasn't quite that nice. Had me come back a month-ish later (don't remember many details why). Anyway, said that since they didn't go down at all, that I should get a CT scan done to see how extensive the inflammation was. So I went to AVOIC, had my CT scan done, and went home. A few days later, I got a call from the allergist saying "YOU NEED TO GET AN MRI, AS SOON AS YOU CAN!" "OK..., I'll make an appointment." "I will call ahead to see you get one sooner." "OK, thank you." Had an MRI done, because MRI have sharp clarity where as CT are more fuzzy with details. Allergist said that "it's extensive, and you'll need to have an E(ar)N(ose)T(hroat) specialist/surgeon look." That was SO reassuring. I don't remember when I saw my ENT spec in summer, but he said they were called "sinus polyps" gave me a prescription for a fun (slightly mood altering) steroid to get the inflammation down, by A LOT. But that still wasn't enough and I would have to have surgery done to remove them/it all. The damage was so extensive that he wasn't sure if he could get them/it all out from just my nose, and may have to cut the top of my skull, pry my brain up out of the way, and drill straight down into my forehead from my brain pan (almost brain surgery, woo!). So I was then sent to a neurologist, and he did a physical exam of my balance, coordination, spatial awareness, not sure if there were other things, but he said I was fine for what had happened. Which was slightly reassuring. After I had been on the anti-inflammatory steroids for awhile, I went and got another CT done at the ENT so they could look and see where all the bone was, and how much I still had intact. My ENT said that he could get them all out via my nose, and nothing drastic was necessary. The sinus polyps had grown so slowly that it pushed against the bone is such a way that when it regrew/replenished it was physically reshaped. Now, the polyps could have grown in several different directions/axes (plural of axis). Straight forward and pushed my forehead into a funny shape and disfiguring me most uncomfortably, down onto my eyes/optic nerve causing blindness, down against my upper palate and changed the way my jaw moved and affected chewing, back and slightly down into several glands (that would've been really bad), but they grew straight up and back pushing the bone of my sinuses expanding them into my brain case straight up and slightly back causing rather decently large dents into my brain. Now for those of you who haven't taken psychology 101, those parts of the brain are known as the frontal lobes, and are quite important for human beings. The problem with the polyps is they grew so slowly that nobody knows how long I've had them, could've started growing in 2007, could've started around 1998. Nobody knows. My brain just responded by restructuring/rewiring itself as the pressure slowly grew to accommodate the synapses being compressed. I had surgery on August 12, 2009 (weeks? before fall semester started), and things have not been the same since. My ENT said that he was removing ones the size of his thumb (the dude's 6'2" not small thumbs). Since then the pressure against my brain has been gone, and the possibility of synaptic tearing (imagine pushing a sponge together really tight, and then pulling it apart slowly as it begins to rip, its kinda like that). Since my frontal lobes have been damaged how I was as a person (many different facets of my being) in the past isn't the same as how I am now, and I can't go back, no matter how much I want to and try to. I write down things that happen to me on a day-to-day basis of "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!" in a psych journal. To put it in my own way; my brain got raped by a baseball bat, and my mind is paying for it. Will expand on some things later, and/or correct the rambling to me more structured. Meh, right now I need to figure out how to copy CT and MRI scans easily to Black&White images.
Next adventure; Nate goes to the psychologists', and his insurance royally fucks him over!
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