Mon Oreille

I'm done seeing the doc for now with regard to my ear. He did say that he wanted to see me in a month or so just to check up on it, but he's happy that it's as drained as it's going to get and it isn't infected. Infected has an entirely new meaning to me now since I've been watching 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Great movies, although certainly not for the squeamish.

Anyway, the ear seems to be as good as it's going to get. The Doc says that I'm good to start working out again, but doesn't want me doing any sort of heavy lifting. As far as returning to the mat goes, he definitely doesn't want it getting hit or rubbed. After the slicing I went through my ear is so damned sore and throbbing that I whole heartedly agree with him. I may go to jiu jitsu just for the instruction, but I'm certainly not going to be doing any rolling for a while. Anyway, that's my blogging update for today. Be safe out there...

Cauliflower Ear

So, I just had the nastiest case of ear madness so far. My father who is an E.R. tech at Vassar Hospital took a look at it after I asked him if he could drain it for me (I've never done it before, and I also don't have needles or syringes with which to do it), and he said "I'm not touching that." I didn't really think that it was that big of a deal, but he convinced me to come into the ER to get a referral to an eye/ear/nose/throat guy. So I did, hoping that they would just drain it there and I wouldn't have to go through the entire referral process and all. When I got the cut on the back of my head, the guy who put the staples in for me was into martial arts; I was hoping to get him as my doctor and have him treat me, but that wasn't the case. I did see him, and he was morbidly impressed. I was hoping that he'd tell the doctor I had that he'd do it himself if my doc wasn't confident about it, but even he told me that he wasn't going to mess with it either.

Anyway, I guess I can understand it...along with all the fluid built up in there, I was loosing circulation. I didn't realize it, but parts of my ear were turning white, and other parts still had bruising. There was swelling that not only wasn't going down, was getting worse. I met my Dad for his birthday dinner on Sunday evening, and met him again when I went into the ER Monday night. He noted that the swelling was worse, and I hadn't been training at all in between. The swelling had increased, and was cutting off circulation. Crap.

So, today I went to the specialist and he wouldn't drain the damn thing either...he sliced my ear open in three different places. He put holes in my ear! He then proceeded to wrap my head in gauze as tightly as he possibly could; he had put some stuff in the cuts he had made so that they wouldn't close and the ear would continue to drain on its own. Great.

Now, I look like a Crypt or Blood who accidentally put his bandana in a bleach load. Obviously I can't train, but he warned me against sweating or showering, as this would make the bandaging fall apart. Also, increasing my heart rate would only bring more crap to my ear that would have to drain as well. This means I can't even go for a run if I want to.

So on Thanksgiving Day, I'll be meeting up with him in the morning to take off the bandages. No training, no running, no nothing. I really don't even want to go outside looking like this, heh. I do have plenty of homework to catch up so I'll be busy, but this really, really sucks.

What's New

Just in case anyone actually checks this out for updates on everything Janicik, I figured I'd take a minute to write some words.

I think I'm finally starting to get my shit together. The apartment is looking more and more like living space instead of a storage unit, I'm catching up on my school work, and I'm training again. I'm not training quite the way I was; some days I know my head just isn't in it. For the most part, however, I'm back on the mat.

I'm not doing NAGA. I was planning on it originally, but then shit happened and I changed my mind. As it turns out, even if I wanted to do it, I'm in no shape to. During training, I thought I was safe from a key lock that I was caught in because I had slipped my elbow in and there was no strain on my shoulder. What I didn't realize, was that the strain that would have been on my shoulder transferred entirely to my elbow. It hurt, and it still hurts. It doesn't keep me from training, but it I definitely do not want to risk getting caught with that in competition. I will soil myself from the pain if someone gets even close to that and, as a result of competing against me instead of training with me, they'd do what they had to do to get me to tap. I would do the same.

The real kicker is that my right elbow isn't the problem. About a single week ago, the same thing happened on my left arm, but the popping noises that the joint made were audible to Brian who was a good 20 feet away. It didn't hurt immediately, but I knew I was in trouble. Over the next couple days it swelled like a balloon and the pain increased exponentially. This will take a very long time to heal. I'm hoping that by icing it daily and pumping myself full of ibuprofen a few times a day, I'll be healed in 9-10 months. Shitty.

Not so shitty as Cliff. His leg is worse. We've gone on a couple runs even though we both probably knew it was a bad idea. Turns out that it was a VERY bad idea. The situation has worsened, and Cliff is thankfully trying to completely eliminate running from his mind for a good year. We're all hoping that won't take that long, but we're not really in the driver's seat, or the runner's shoes, on this one.

School for me is another topic all together. I don't want to get into it right now other than to say to everyone who's interested that I'm still here and I'm going to finish the semester as well as I can. I've said that before, but I'm telling myself as often as possible to simply man up. There's nothing else I can do.

So there you go.

Oh yeah, one more thing. I've decided I'm a Rangers fan. I figure that accusations of disloyalty are warranted, but at least I'm coming back into the Ranger fold and not rooting for the Islanders ::shudder::. The reason I started rooting for the Devils when I was younger was because everyone around me was a Ranger fan and I wanted to be different. Although I remained a Devil's fan when the Rangers won the cup, and have since then, I'm over that being different for the sake of being different fad I guess. Also, I find that getting to the Meadowlands is easier than getting to the Garden, and cheaper. Now that the Devils are moving further south in Jersey, it won't be as easy. Plus, why the fuck am I rooting for a New Jersey team? I hate New Jersey.