How I Became Part Titanium

Hello everyone! I am excited to be back writing. In all honesty, I began writing this at the beginning of November yet somehow I am just posting it now. The school work, man, is dragging me down but it is something that has to be done. As always, thank you for taking the time to read my posts. It is such a great feeling to get the positive feedback I have been receiving.

Since I have talked so much about the past, it is about time I get to addressing more recent times. Around this time of year, I get quite nostalgic because it has shockingly been just about two years since I had some of the most significant operations in my life. I realize I have discussed this previously, but I wanted to revisit the topic and go into it in a little more in depth. September of 2011 was the first of 3 surgeries to come my way. This one was the implantation of a device called a Deep Brain Stimulator (DBS). Beware, the surgery sounds worse than it actually was. It began with two electrodes being placed in a specific areas in the brain. The electrodes emit an electrical current to control and change the brain’s electrical impulses, For my conditions, Dystonia and Cerebral Palsy, the electrodes task is to decrease the amount of “spasm messages” sent throughout my body. Of course, most things that entail electricity require a power source, thus, I also had two battery packs inserted just above my stomach.

It is really wild how quickly technology is coming along. Who would ever imagine a device such as this one just 10 years ago? This offers me hope that one day Cerebral Palsy will no longer be a part of my life, but, for now I can cope. Anyway, aside from relieving the spasms, the battery packs also give me something to show off. Heck, I have 2 bulging cubes protruding from my stomach - how is that not completely awesome?! The procedure went extremely well and there weren’t really any complications. Unfortunately , I landed myself back in the same operating room barely two months later. Something I had done had torn one of the leads. One of the craziest aspects of the whole situation was that in just the two months since my prior implantation, there had already been an updated and improved version of my DBS. I guess I wasn’t the only one being too rough with the device as the updated version included more durable wires. So, in November of that same year, I underwent the same surgery; this time hopefully with better results.

To no surprise, the miracle workers at Mass General had me comfortable, healed and ready to go in just 3 days. It was a big relief to be leaving so quickly. My 1st operation condemned me to the hospital for 8 days with a roommate who’s father seemed to be a drug dealer. Not trying to be too presumptuous, but, come on, when a guy’s phone goes off at all times of the night and all that is said is “I’m not out yet, can't deliver right now”, suspicions arise. I can’t complain though, for he did help me tap into the internet from the hospital computers and hook it up to his son’s video game console so we could watch pirated movies. Hopefully I didn’t just get myself into any trouble revealing that!

Following my DBS surgeries, I had scoliosis surgery, the “big kahuna.” This one took place at Hasbro Children’s Hospital. In this procedure, I had two rods placed on either side of my spine to re-align and prevent any further damage done to my body. Prior to the rods being inserted, I had a 45 degree curve in my spine. It was pretty crazy, I remember being able to almost rest my elbow on my hip due to the nature of the curve. I was pretty excited and optimistic for this surgery since the results were practically instantaneous and the rods included a special “2 month off from school” package. So, on December 15th, 2011, I grew 4 inches in 6 hours! Pretty impressive, eh? Again, the surgical procedure went well, aside from giving a few doctors panic attacks. My DBS had a freaky mind of it’s own and turned itself on while the operation was in progress consequently sending the monitoring machines into a tizzy. I believe the DBS representative there who had overseen the surgery said there was a small percentage, in the single digits, of something like that occurring. Not going to lie, feels pretty good to be in the single digit percentile for something. Sadly, I don’t remember much of my hospital stay so I don’t have any good stories to tell about my roommates this time.

Overall, my time spent in the hospital was well worth it. There is no doubt I have seen an improvement in my quality of life. Everybody, my family, my doctors, my friends and others made the entire ordeal as relaxing and comfortable as possible. I had an excuse from life, how nice is that? My needs and interests were catered to, I was given the utmost attention and affection; life was good. In fact, there are days where I truly wish I was back in recovery mode. It was the world according to Michael. Of course ask my parents that and they’ll tell you it’s that way every day, so I guess I should say it was the Universe according to Michael.

Well, have to get back to school work, Thanks again for reading this. I hope everyone is enjoying a very happy holiday season.  I will try and get another blog post out soon.