Functionally ReTodded

Since I recently posted photos of me looking like a dork on my new treadmill, I started thinking about what I looked like before, including my time in the hospital.

I’d like to say that there were a bunch of pictures of me before, during and after the operation, but as it turns out, no one in my family thought it was a particularly great photo op. They apparently were too busy being concerned that I might die.

Anyway, I wanted to post the few that I have so you can see how fun it was.

I’ve also included a couple of photos of my “scars,” including an R-rated picture of what I refer to as my goiter and my wife refers to as “ewww…that’s just gross.” It is (or was since it’s 90% gone now) the hematoma at the site where they connected me to the heart-lung machine. It’s my left groin. There’s no dirty stuff, but it is an adult male groinal region, so I recommend that you take the necessary precautions.

This might spill into two blog entries, but if it does, I’ll just copy this intro to both of them so they’ll be easily identifiable.

Enjoy everybody…

Here’s me in the ICU (the second ICU which was a private room) just a snorin’ away.

Here’s me in the same ICU but awake. You’ll notice the dried bloody area on the right side of my neck. That’s where the line went in and straight into my heart for accurate BP readings during the surgery. YIKES!!

Here’s me and my dad. I couldn’t decide which one to post. One has him smiling and me blurry, and this one has him not smiling as much and me blurry. This was taken right before the Auburn - Georgia game was set to start (I believe). I would soon be asleep thanks to my friend percocet.

And now, one final warning. Don’t scroll any further if you don’t want to see my groin. It’s the next picture. ( I feel like Grover in “There’s a monster at the end of this book.”) This was taken in late December, so the swelling had gone down some. The day after I got home from the hospital, this “thing” was about half again as big as a roll of quarters and hard as a rock. (Insert your own joke here).

By this time, it was about the size of a roll of nickel thickness wise, but had shortened up a bit. It’s still not very attractive, but I’ll trade a groin scar for still being alive. Plus, I think I can work the three chest wounds plus the groin into some sort of Fitty Cent hip-hop thug life gang bangin’ attack. You know, like I got shot three times in the chest and stabbed in the groin (in the femoral artery no less) by a dude with a butcher knife, but they still couldn’t take my ass down.

Word.

Hope you enjoyed my little photo essay. Hopefully I’ll remember to start taking some more pictures for the blog to help draw attention away from the fact that I’m an idiot.

Peace out!