Author Archives: Altoman
February 7, 2007 – ER, General Hospital, Gray’s Anatomy, & Scrubs, NOT!
They have a registration room. This is where you book-in your stay for surgery. Once given wrist bands and your data is entered into the computer, you’re sent off to the waiting room. Some old guy (grin) varifies your wrist band and tells you to wait.
I hate waiting. [...]
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January 2007 – See Me. Feel Me. Touch Me.
Prior to surgery, you get the blood tests, the chest xrays, the CT scans, and I think I got a MRI because the CT wasn’t clear enough for Dr. Shores to clear a path to the cancer. I’m not used to all of this stuff.
The young lady who took my blood sat [...]
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January 7, 2007 – Dr. Carol Shores, PhD, MD
The first visit to an institution the size of UNC is mind boggling. The buildings! The people! It is simply overwhleming. After signing up and form filling, they took me back into the clinic. I didn’t have much of a wait. The first thing the nurse [...]
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December 2006 – Christmas, anyone?
I honestly can’t even tell you if Christmas happened in 2006 or not. I can tell you that my anxiety level doubled. Everything is out in the open. The cards are face up on the table. Regardless, my visit with Dr. Arowood wasn’t as emotional or dramatic. [...]
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December 2006 – It’s harder when someone says it for the first time
One December morning, Joan was working at the kitchen table and realized that my face looked funny. Well, yeah, that’s a given.
The right side of my face drooped. It looked like a hounds drooping flesh. Since I haven’t been to a dentist for a few (hundred) years, her immediate [...]
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October 2006 – I suspect that their is an intruder in my mouth
After some long hard Googling (it ain’t easy to Google, you know) I finally concluded that this thing was not good and wasn’t going away on its own.
My best guess was that it was some kind of squamous cell cancer. I learned that President Grover Cleveland had it operated on which [...]
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August 2006 – Breakthrough
About mid August, after our trip to Pennsylvania to visit my Mom and Sister and her family, a lesion of sorts appeared on my upper palate near where my wisdom used to be on the right side.
At first, I thought it to be some kind of ulceration and really didn’t give too much [...]
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July 2006 – Wisdom Teeth are Smart
It took 27-29 days. My wisdom tooth finally broke loose naturally, on its own. Okay. Maybe my tongue was curious and often played with the tooth’s wiggle. That’s better then a pair of pliers or door slamming. I thought that that was cool. You see, my jaw is smaller then the [...]
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February 7, 2007 – Pina Colata