We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was.
By the time you get to read this, I will likely be in hospital with my head swathed in bandage.
458 days ago, I was hit in the face with a brick on a demolition site. The impact of that brick broke my cheekbone; broke my eye socket, broke the roof of my mouth; knocked my jaws and teeth out of line; and left me with both impaired and double vision in my left eye. Oh, and part of my head still feels numb.
If you look at the MRI scan photo, you can see my left eye socket (which appears on the right in the photo) now has no floor. There’s also a chunk of bone out of line to the top right of the eye socket, which is where the brick actually hit.
And you might notice that there’s a black kidney-shaped area on the left that is not replicated on the right. That, apparently, is my sinus and it appears black because it is filled with air, as it should be. The sinus on the right appears grey because, presumably, the void is filled with displaced bits of face.
In the time that has elapsed since the accident, I have attended 27 hospital appointments. I have visited or spent time in four different hospitals. I have seen seven different consultants.
I have had three MRI scans, four x-rays and undergone more eye tests than I can actually recall. I have lost weeks of work. My bill for parking at the hospital alone is over £200.
But today, my eye socket is – hopefully going to be repaired at long last.
The past year has been the hardest of my life. Don’t get me wrong – It was just a whack on the head and – frankly – I was no oil painting before the brick hit.
But when you’re self-employed, losing weeks from work hits harder than any brick to the face. And my accident came almost immediately after I’d lost a few months off work with a burst appendix and the fallout from that.
As a result, I now find myself in personal debt to a pretty hefty degree. I can and I will dig myself and my family out of the hole but it won’t be easy and it won’t be fast either. But we’ll get there.
Thankfully, the team at Chambers Media has worked tirelessly over the past year or more to ensure that the business – DemolitionNews, Demolition magazine, Demolition TV and Demolition News Radio – have gone from strength-to-strength.
Although my wife might argue with this statement, I am not a workaholic. However, I am usually happiest when I can work and unhappiest when I can’t. Stir in the stress of being in personal debt, and my mood has not been great over the past 12 months or more. And, try as I might, I know that this has sometimes been reflected in the tone of my writing on DemolitionNews.com.
But hopefully, all of that comes to an end today.
If you’re in any way squeamish, I would suggest that you don’t read the next sentence.
To carry out the operation without leaving me with a facial scar, the operation to underpin my left eye and to “hoover out” my sinus will take place inside the lower eyelid. I know, right!
Although the surgeon has cautioned me that my double-vision will not necessarily be cured by the operation, he is hopeful.
If all goes according to plan, I will be able to drive at night comfortably again. I will be able to look at a computer screen for more than a few hours without getting a major headache. • And I can start to pay off some of the personal debt I have accumulated over the past year or so.
And if it doesn’t go according to plan, I have a contingency plan.
I can’t tell you too much at this stage. But let’s just say that I have registered the domain name cyclopsforhire.com.
