Archive | April, 2009

Muir Woods

12 Apr

Today, my brother and I went to see Muir Woods, but we encountered a couple of injury-related problems early on.

First, shortly after we left, I found that the flexible foam bandage on my elbow had come off. I don’t know if I’ve ever been satisfied with the way one of those bandages stuck. It seems like they always come off. Fortunately, we passed a pharmacy shortly after passing through San Rafael, and so I was able to purchase a box of better bandages.

When we got to Muir Woods, I was hungry enough that I wanted some of the smoothie I had made before leaving. Unfortunately, I discovered that I had left it at home. Luckily, the concession tent at the edge of the parking lot sold little boxes of chocolate (and only chocolate) soy milk. The price, naturally, was excessive, but it held me off until we got home, if only barely.

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Shopping

11 Apr

My brother has come to visit and drive me around in a rental car for a few days. Our first trip was to Whole Foods, where I bought some canned soups, soy yogurts, rice milk, and chocolate soy milk. The chocolate soy milk is just to make things a little bit more interesting, and the rice milk is so that I won’t be drinking several smoothies a day with soy milk, soy protein powder, and soy yogurt.

Thereafter, we went to Bed Bath and Beyond, where I purchased a strainer, which I plan to use to remove particles that are too big to blend from my soups. In buying the strainer, I also hoped to be able to remove the oatmeal from the smoothie I made the other day. Also in Bed Bath and Beyond, I found that there were towels on sale, so I purchased a couple. For reasons I don’t understand, I intended to buy two towels in different colors, but somehow I managed to inadvertently choose two of the same color without noticing that they were the same color until after I had checked out.

Upon my return home, the strainer did prove successful in removing the oatmeal from the smoothie.

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Vega

11 Apr

On Wednesday, a few hours after my surgery, my concerned mother talked with my landlady over the phone about my medical situation. My landlady is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and she had agreed to serve as an emergency contact for my mother. After the phone conversation ended, my mother reported to me that she had talked my landlady out of buying cans of Ensure for me. Ensure is a dairy product, so I was grateful for this. This morning, though, thinking about the story reminded me that I had seen a vegan meal replacement at Whole Foods once. After a few Google searches, I determined that the product I was thinking of was Vega.

I could see on the website that the  nutrient content of Vega was very impressive. It also happens to be free of all major allergens, including soy. Since I want to have some sources of protein other than soy, this made it particularly worth trying. I purchased a few snack-size packets at Whole Foods today, and  I tasted two of the flavors. The taste certainly wasn’t anything special, but it didn’t taste bad, so I’ve decided to order a larger supply. At first, I hesitated because of the price (retail is about $5 per serving), but I decided that for something that replaces a whole meal, it really isn’t too bad, particularly given the circumstances. The best price I could find was at Food Fight Grocery, a vegan grocery store in Portland. I’ll order two large containers (which results in a substantially cheaper price per serving), and keep one in my office and one at home.

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A drug-free me

11 Apr

Yesterday, I struggled mightily to stay awake in my classes. At first I thought this was just because I stayed up late Thursday night, but then I began to wonder if Vicodin, which I had been taking twice daily, might have been playing some role. When I was in the office, I thought that the only side effect on the label was dizziness, but it occurred to me that it might actually have been drowsiness, and I had misremembered or misread.

When I got home, I checked the label of my container of Vicodin, and sure enough, it warned that the drug may cause drowsiness. I wasn’t experiencing much pain, so I decided I’d try to stop taking it.

I haven’t taken Vicodin since yesterday morning, and so far everything is going well. I don’t feel tired, but that may well be because I slept better last night. The most noticeable difference when I woke up this morning, though, was that I was able to talk reasonably well. My speech is still far from normal, I think that most people would find me comprehensible. I do struggle with certain sounds. For example, I can’t pronounce the “th” sound, so I have to use the “d” sound as young children sometimes do.

For the first time, I feel genuinely hopeful that I’ll be able to teach my classes next week.

In all fairness, I don’t know if my ability to talk has anything to do with my newly drug-free status. It may well be that it’s just a consequence of my mouth being a little bit less swollen. However, I do think it’s very much plausible that a narcotic like Vicodin would make it harder to exercise the relatively precise control required to speak clearly.

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The wired diet

10 Apr

Now that I’ve been wired for a couple of days, my nourishment habits are starting to fall into a pattern. I drink a lot of smoothies, perhaps four to six (each about 3 cups) per day. The ingredients of the smoothies aren’t exactly the same each time, but usually I use soy milk, soy protein powder, and some soy yogurt. I have some frozen fruit and some bananas, but they tend not to blend well enough to pass through both the straw and the small gaps between my teeth. I’d like to get some rice milk to use instead of soy milk so that I’m not taking in so much soy.

I’ll usually also eat one can of soup per day. This requires the soup to be pureed in the blender. I wish that I could eat a bit more soup in a day, but I’m hesitant to try because of the sodium content.

Much of my perishable solid food has gone into the freezer. This includes some pasta, a loaf of bread, and some Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon that I made on Saturday. The red bell peppers and salad greens in my refrigerator will unfortunately probably rot before I can eat them.

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Stitch removal

10 Apr

After my morning classes, I went to University Health Services to get the stitches removed from my lip and my chin. After waiting in the lobby for a short while, I was seen by the triage nurse, who I’ve learned is responsible for prioritizing patients based on the severity of their conditions. The triage nurse today was actually the same nurse who had bandaged my wounds on Monday, so she was somewhat familiar with my story. On Monday, though, I had been able to talk reasonably well, but today it’s very hard for me to convey information to other people, so I was relieved at not having to repeat my whole story.

I was kind of annoyed when the triage nurse asked how I was going to get enough food with my mouth wired shut and then added “You’re already such a little guy.”  I’m about 6′ 1″ tall, and I weighed 155 pounds when I stepped on a scale during spring break. I certainly don’t consider myself to be big, but this was the first time in a long time that anybody described me to my face as “little.” I could afford to lose ten pounds before I’d be classified as underweight. The remark seemed particularly inappropriate coming from somebody who was supposed to be giving me a medical evaluation. I mean, if I had stepped on a scale, then it might be appropriate to bring up my weight, but I think it’s reasonable for me to expect the nurse not to make uninformed comments on health-related issues. I know she meant well, but it still seems inappropriate to me.

After the triage nurse, I was seen by a doctor and a nurse. I was amused that the doctor who looked at me asked if my bicycle was damaged. I did my best to tell him that it wasn’t even scratched, although I haven’t cared enough to look at it. The nurse took out the stitches. She had a fair amount of trouble with this because the thread on my chin was the same color as my facial hair, which I’ve been unable to shave since the accident.

I went into UHS hoping to ask somebody whether I should be concerned about the pain I’ve been experiencing in my left ear. I think it’s probably just swelling around the site of the fracture, but I wanted to check. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to communicate this question to anybody. Looking back on the visit, it seems like somebody should have recognized the obvious difficulty I was having in communicating and offered me a pen and paper to write down my answers. On the other hand, perhaps I should have brought my own pen and paper.

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Not a good use of time

10 Apr

I just spent a fair amount of time looking at food blogs. This is the last thing somebody who won’t be able to eat any solid food for another three weeks (and probably won’t many of the foods on these blogs for even longer) needs to be doing, particularly when there are so many problem sets to be finished

Teaching (sort of)

9 Apr

Thursday is the day that I’m supposed to teach three sections of calculus. I anticipated not being able to teach this week and arranged for people to fill in for me. However, because I had an exam to pass back today, and the people filling in for me weren’t there for the grading, I went along to return the exams and try to answer questions people had about the way they were graded. I wasn’t really able to answer questions out loud, but I was able to write things down when issues came up.

On an unrelated note, one of the friends who filled in for me raised the question of whether I could do math while on Vicodin. It hadn’t really occurred to me that the medication might cause a problem, but it is a narcotic, so it’s possible. I really haven’t gotten any math done since the accident, and it’s possible that the medication has some role in this. I’m only taking the Vicodin twice a day, but it’s something to consider.

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Oatmeal fail

9 Apr

I tried making oatmeal. I ground the oats in the blender before preparing the oatmeal, but when I put them in hot water the oat fragments expanded enough so that most couldn’t pass through a straw. Even many of those that couldn’t pass through a straw ended up getting stuck in the wires. In a last ditch effort to use the oatmeal, I tried taking just a little bit and adding it to a smoothie, but this made it impossible for me to drink the smoothie. I left the smoothie in the refrigerator until I can acquire a strainer with which to remove the oatmeal.

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The newly wired life

8 Apr

My mouth has started to feel sore, but I’m not too worried because my mouth used to feel this way all the time when I had orthodontic braces and went in to have them adjusted. My tongue is adjusting to having wires on the bottom of my mouth. I don’t really understand how this is possible, but I haven’t been able to find any wires on the top of my mouth.

The oral surgeon called this evening to check in with me, which was nice. He was able to understand me, which I found impressive (he said he had plenty of practice). He repeated some things which he had apparently told me earlier when I wasn’t alert enough to remember them. He told me that the procedure went well and that he was able to get the bone exactly where he wanted it. He also talked to me about the Zip-N-Squeeze bags he gave me for taking in purees and liquids. I actually haven’t tried to use them yet; I’ve just been drinking through a straw.

One consequence of having my jaw wired is that I now have to crush my Vicodin tablets before I take them. This certainly isn’t a difficult task, but I’ve found that whatever I take it with tastes very bad.

There is some good news, which is that I can now tilt my head back without any pain.

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