Archive | April, 2009

Introduction

18 Apr

Just under two weeks ago, I fell off of my bicycle and sustained a number of injuries, the most serious of which was a mandibular fracture. I plan to use this blog to share various musings related to these injuries, as well as things I’ve learned that might be helpful to other people in similar situations.

At various times, it may be helpful for a reader to know that I am a vegan and a graduate student in mathematics. I suspect that anybody who knows me and finds this blog would recognize that I am the author, but I don’t plan on identifying myself at this time.

Obviously, I’m getting something of a late start on this blog, with the accident nearly two weeks behind me already. I’ve been meaning to start this blog for some time now, but life has been busy. I have quite a number of entries that I’d like to write, and I plan on back-dating some posts according to when I first thought to write them.

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A culinary success

17 Apr

For dinner today, I had a smoothie which I might actually want to make again after I’m able to open my mouth again. Then it won’t be a meal, of course, but it was really quite good. I didn’t write down exact amounts of ingredients, but I’ll call it a Peanut Butter Apple Cinnamon Smoothie. I made it by blending a So Delicious Cinnamon Bun soy yogurt with a few tablespoons of peanut butter and maybe 1/3 cup of applesauce, a little bit of soymilk, and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. After that was all blended, I added more soymilk until the volume was about three cups, and blended some more.

The smoothie felt as though it was just thin enough that it could pass through the straw, and the flavor was really very good. Something about the flavored soy yogurt made it particularly so.  The peanut butter has plenty of fat and protein, so it was nice and filling, too.

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A challenge

17 Apr

I’ve found my oral surgeon’s assurance, “You’re going to lose some weight” replaying over and over in my head over the last couple of days. I’m not exactly sure why. I wasn’t particularly disturbed by the idea of losing a few pounds. It may well have just been his level of confidence in his prediction that made it stuck with me like this. It also reminds of the nurse last week saying that I’m “already such a little guy” (which did bother me). By now I’ve come to see these remarks as the basis for a challenge to avoid losing weight while I’m wired. I haven’t weighed myself since two weeks before the accident, but I’ll aim for the most recent measurement I have: 155 pounds. As a rule, I’ll try to refrain from doing anything particularly stupid, like consuming to the point of feeling sick or drinking vegetable oil from a cup.

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The wired diet, with Vega

17 Apr

It’s been a couple of days since my supply of Vega arrived, but it’s already changed my life for the better. I already mentioned that it allowed me to go a few hours without eating while I taught back-to-back sections yesterday. A Vega meal replaces at least a couple of smoothies, and it offers more nutritional balance. It’s also a major convenience in the mornings because it’s one meal for the day that I don’t need to prepare before leaving for the office. The taste isn’t great, but it’s at least tolerable. My container of soy protein powder has gone back into the cabinet, so I don’t feel like I’m living off of a monoculture anymore. When I was deciding whether to try this stuff, I had a little bit of trouble coming to terms with the price tag, but so far, it’s definitely worth it.

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A curious reflex

17 Apr

A little bit earlier, I stumbled while walking up some stairs on one of the footpaths in my neighborhood. I was surprised to feel my mouth reflexively try to open. Of course, the wire kept my mouth from actually opening, but it was enough to make me shudder at what might have happened if I had actually fallen.

I do wonder what good this reflex does. From an evolutionary point of view, it’s hard for me to imagine how it might have come about.

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Teaching through the wires

16 Apr

Today was a big day for me. For the first time since my accident, I taught my three sections. I knew that my speech wouldn’t be perfectly normal, and so it still might be hard for students to hear me if the room were full of chatty students. I also knew that it might be hard for students whose first language wasn’t English. To resolve these issues, I prepared detailed notes for the lesson and told the students that they could take them and leave if they wanted to. I expected that since most of my students were only taking the course to get into business or medical school, most of them would exercise this option. This would have the dual effect of giving the students another way of getting my lesson, and keeping the background noise in the classroom at a reasonable level. My expectation proved correct, as I had only six students among the three sections stay the whole time. Many of those who left didn’t even bother to take the notes.

I’m always a little tired after teaching three sections in one day, and today is no exception. Other than that, though, I feel great.  Less than a week ago, I struggled to get even just a word or two out of my mouth, and I was starting to lose hope that I’d be able to teach today. To have been able to get up and teach for four hours under these circumstances is a huge psychological victory that low attendance isn’t going to take away from me.

In all fairness, I owe some credit for today’s success to Vega. I teach two consecutive sections with only 10 minutes in between, which means that I have to go about three hours without eating. On a liquid diet, that would ordinarily be very difficult for me, but after my Vega breakfast, it was not so bad.

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One week check-in

15 Apr

Today marks one week since my mouth has been wired shut, and I commemorated the occasion by returning to the oral surgeon’s office for a check-in appointment. The oral surgeon looked in my mouth briefly and was impressed by how clean it was. He then started talking about eating. He told me that it was only two weeks before I could eat again, but added, “You are going to lose some weight.” He asked if I had been using anything like Ensure or Carnation Instant Breakfast. I told him that I hadn’t, although I didn’t tell him that I was vegan. I wasn’t particularly worried, because thanks to UPS online tracking, I knew that my supply of Vega had been delivered to my door while I was in the office.

I’ll be returning to the oral surgeon in two weeks to get the wires removed.

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A food I don’t crave

14 Apr

This morning, my brother took me to Whole Foods so I could get a few more soups and soy yogurts before he flew home. In the checkout line, I noticed that the woman behind us was buying a “Bacon Bar.” This, apparently, was a milk chocolate bar with bacon in it. Even before I went vegan, I don’t think I would have understood such a food product.

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My dual insurance coverage explained

14 Apr

I’ve come across some information on the University Health Services (UHS) website on how my dual insurance coverage with the Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP) and my father’s plan works:

Services provided at UHS will be billed exclusively to SHIP regardless of whether you have dual coverage through another plan in addition to SHIP. For services provided outside of UHS, SHIP is secondary to all other insurance plans, (except Medi-Cal) meaning the other plan must pay for services first. In this case, SHIP will cover any charges, within the plan’s benefit limits, not covered by your other plan.

It looks like SHIP would ordinarily cover 70% of costs for the oral surgeon with it being out of network, so if my father’s plan covers anything near that proportion, I won’t be liable for much.

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Tea

13 Apr

At the math department tea today, I drank lemonade from a cup without a straw. This was the first time I drank from a cup since the accident. I might have been able to do as early as Friday, when I had the two stitches removed from my lip, but this was the first time I had any reason to try.

There were white corn chips at the tea, and I found myself craving these. I had no interest in yellow corn chips; I specifically wanted the white ones. Of course, the matter is of no practical importance given that I can’t open my mouth anytime soon.

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