1965 Ford Galaxy

Saw this beauty at my mechanic’s shop. My first car was a 1966 Ford Galaxy, but it never looked this good!!

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Fender Marauder and Roland GR-55 Demo

Here is a demo of some sounds from my new Fender Marauder guitar using the neck pickup, the triple bucker bridge pickup and a Roland GK-3 and Roland GR-55 guitar synthesizer.  The Marauder may be made in China, but no matter how much I gripe about it I am unfortunately restricted to a made in China budget.  But Fender has done really well with this item.

Its construction was flawless and it sounds great.  So for $399 I think it rocks.  In this video you get a little taste of the Roland GR-55 guitar synthesizer tone machine.  There will be more about that in the future. Anyway, this is, believe it or not, my first Fender guitar.  A few years ago I was tempted to buy a Stratocaster, but being the budget conscious (cheap) person I am I was disappointed frankly in the quality of the Strats that I checked out back then compared to the price tag and ultimately decided upon an Epiphone Dot.  I love my Epi and it will continue to get use.  But I have never been totally happy with the one solid body axe that I’ve had:  My Godin SD.  It was my first electric guitar and it is a nice guitar, but the playability was always less that I wanted.  When I tried out the Marauder it clicked with me right away and I knew I had to have it.  Everyone has a Stratocaster…..so I knew this would be unique.

 

 

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Superior Canal Dehiscence Syndrome Post Op Update 2

(I have reposted this article that appeared on my old site because it was a popular page and I don’t want it to get lost when I shut the old site down…..so here you go.)

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Hi again folks,

My crainiotomy surgery was one month ago yesterday (5/20/2010) – wow.  So I thought I would give you a little update, including anyone out there who might be diagnosed with SCDS and considering surgery.

As you know I was in surgery Thursday May 20th all day from 8:30 am until 6:00 pm….Then I was in ICU for a day and a half and finally got discharged from the hospital on Tuesday, May 25th.

At the risk of being redundant, but for the benefit of anyone on the Internet reading this who might also have SCDS and had or will have the surgery, here is a bullet list summary of my post-surgical experience:

  • As far as I can tell everything is healing nicely and the SCDS plugging and resurfacing was a success and is staying in place as intended.  I have noticed since the surgery that I no longer have persistent sinus drainage which we now believe was a slow CSF leak, which is now patched.  This is a big plus as well as a reduction of my risk of contracting something serious such as meningitis.  Until the healing process is complete and I am done with balance therapy I won’t be able to know how much the prior dizziness and blackouts have improved, but theoretically they should now be better.
  • I have been unable to hear in my left ear Day 1 post op to present.  At first this ear was 100% dead.  As of today it is still mostly nonfunctional, but every now and then I hear what sounds like bubbles popping and I am pretty sure I can hear the telephone dial tone very, very faintly.  I also hear constant hiss or tinnitus in that ear.  So, we are hoping and praying that there is still a little bit of life left in there which will slowly come back or at least be available to additional medical intervention.
  • The spinal headaches are GONE.  I had these from Day 1 post op to Day 5 post op.
  • I was VERY dizzy Day 1 post op for about 2 weeks.  The dizziness has gotten better steadily, but I still get dizzy pretty easily and it is easy to lose my balance.  This is a retraining period that my brain is going through to deal with the loss of the superior semicircular canal.  I started balance/vestibular therapy this past week and now have “homework” to do every day.
  • My vision has improved back to normal.  Initially I was unable to see or focus on things steadily, especially things more than 5 feet away.
  • Part of my balance therapy is to walk every day.  I am now able to walk 2-3 miles.  This sure beats the first few days when I found I needed a walker which scared the heck out of me!  I still get really dizzy pretty easily when I walk so I have to be very careful when I do this in addition since I am only hearing out of one ear it is easy to get surprised by vehicles approaching me from behind.
  • I got all of the 35 staples removed two weeks ago and my hair is starting to grow back….it’s about 1/2 inch long now and I am almost a hippie.  I still have what looks like a bullet hole scar on my forehead from where they screwed on the head frame contraption during surgery to make sure my head and body did not move lest the accidentally cut the wrong thing.  This was a good idea.
  • I am still not allowed to drive and I don’t know when that restriction will be lifted.  Driving is dependent on how I do in the balance therapy and how my eyes and mind are able to respond to movement and my ability to read during movement.
  • I am still limited to not lifting anything over 10 pounds, but I hope that gets rescinded soon as there is a lot of work piling up around here that will need to get done.  In the mean time I keep trying to ignore it and focus on other things that I can do.

If you have SCDS and have any questions feel free to contact me and I am happy to talk to you.

Please Click here to check out my music!  Thanks! 🙂

-Chris

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Superior Canal Dehiscence Syndrome Post Op Update

(I have reposted this article that appeared on my old site because it was a popular page and I don’t want it to get lost when I shut the old site down…..so here you go.)

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Hi family, friends and fans,

This is just a note to let you know that I am still alive and survived my surgery!!

I was in surgery last Thursday May 20th all day from 8:30 am until 6:00 pm….Then I was in ICU for a day and a half and finally got discharged from the hospital on Tuesday of this week.  I hope to be able to be released from doctor’s care in early July.

Unfortunately during surgery they found more “dehiscences” (medical term for a hole in your head…..) besides the one they had already visualized through the superior canal bone via the CT scan.  The other dehiscences were in my mastoid bone…..they could not see these particular dehiscenses from the CT scans.  Basically I had perforations through my skull base and I was leaking cerebral fluid out of my head into my inner ear and sinuses.  Very appetizing, I know! LOL.  Among other things, this could have caused me to get meningitis if not corrected, but they tell me they got them all patched.  I also ended up with a cerebral spinal fluid leak and an air pocket that caused me the hugest headache I have ever had and took several days to get under control.  A lumbar “blood patch” did the trick, thank God, otherwise I would have been staying the night again at Hotel Swedish.  Home is good.  🙂

So, right now I exercising my faith in my surgeons and God as I currently cannot hear in my left ear at all except for sporadic very weird, “zinging” and “buzzing” sounds.  I could swear every now and then I can hear some kind of radio transmissions in my left ear as well!  I am serious! They tell my my they monitored my hearing during the entire procedure and that my sensorineural hearing is just fine and that right now the reason I cannot hear is because my mastoid bones and inner ear are full of fluid that should dissipate over time and they expect me to fully recover my hearing and have normal balance again once I am all healed in 4-6 weeks.  I also came away with one heck of a scar!  I told the surgeon I liked to play the bass and wondered if he could fashion a bass clef shaped scar!! He must of thought I was serious because  I think he came pretty close!! LOL! It’s very bad.  Here are some lovely pics for you at the bottom of this post.  🙂

At the risk of being redundant, but for the benefit of anyone on the Internet reading this who might also have SCDS and had or will have the surgery, here is a bullet list summary of my post-surgical experience:

  • Unable to hear in my left ear Day 1 post op to present
  • Spinal headache Day 1 post op to Day 5 post op
  • Very dizzy Day 1 post op to present (this will be a longer term healing and adjustment process according to doc.  Position changes still cause me a lot of dizziness, especially driving in circles!)
  • Unable to see or focus on things steadily, especially things more than 5 feet away  Day 1 post op to present  (this has improved slowly each day.)
  • Nauseous  Day 1 post op to Day 3 post op.  (I’m glad that stopped!  The hospital actually had some really good tasting food.)
  • Able to get out of bed and walk with a walker by day 3 post op
  • Able to walk around hospital without a walker and use handrails by day 5 post op
  • Able to walk out to mailbox and back with my wife’s assistance by day 7 post op.   Now we will be gradually increasing my distance each day.
  • I have a post-op follow up appointment to have my 35 staples will be removed next Tuesday.

Pam and I would once again like to thank everyone who has stopped by the hospital, our house, called, and emailed and brought us food and other things.  Old fashioned thank you cards will be going out to you in the snail mail.  Thanks to all my family and friends for your love and generosity.

-Chris

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Dave Barry’s Colonoscopy Journal

A friend sent me this today in an attempt to cheer me up and break my nervousness over my impending colonoscopy.  BUT, I almost don’t need a colonoscopy NOW…..I think I just had one reading this.

ROFLMAO!! OH, I CAN BARELY BREATHE NOW!!

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This is from newshound Dave Barry’s colonoscopy journal:

…….I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenteritis, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis .

Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn’t really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, ‘HE’S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!’

I left Andy’s office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called ‘MoviPrep,’ which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America ‘s enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn’t eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes – and here I am being kind – like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, ‘a loose watery bowel movement may result.’ This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground.

MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don’t want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and star t eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action -packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, ‘What if I spurt on Andy?’ How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn’t thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

W hen everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was ‘Dancing Queen’ by ABBA I remarked to Andy that, of a ll the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, ‘Dancing Queen’ has to be the least appropriate.

‘You want me to turn it up?’ said Andy, from somewhere behind me. ‘Ha ha, ‘ I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.

I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling ‘Dancing Queen, Feel the beat of the tambourine,’ and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood.

Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

ABOUT THE WRITER
Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald.

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