Halo clinic - Week Five

Week five has been conquered! It was a good week. I caught up with my mates for the $15 steak at The Odin and we brainstormed how I could gussy my halo up for my friend Neil's wedding in February. Other topics: Dominating the photobooth. Tearing up the dancefloor with The Robot. Charging through the crowd for the bouquet. The usual.

All of these plans come to naught because after today's halo clinic, I have a finish date, and it is six weeks away, and is the day before the wedding!

Not exactly halfway through yet, but this was too good to wait a week.

But I know-- I have only been in the halo for five weeks! And 12 weeks is the recommended period of time! To which I say: Keep your doubts to yourself, haters! I'm blowing this thing! And then I'm having a shower!

That may have been the highlight of the clinic, but plenty of things happened today!

The pins on the left are still infected, but the nurse was much happier with them this week. The swab results were interesting. While there was a run of the mill staph infection in one of the pin sites, another exotic bacteria was hanging out with it, and a completely different type of bacteria in the other site! The two infections are totally independent of each other, which surprised me because I was sure I'd transferred it over through head-scratching. It does explain why the first round of antibiotics didn't knock it out and why the broad spectrum appears to have done the trick. The nurse thought I needed another course of antibiotics, but the doctor decided that I didn't, so I suppose we will see who wins next week.

Another thing the doctor mentioned is that if the infection does come back again, they might consider a neck brace instead. Not sure whether or not to be excited about that possibility? Definitely more excited about that then about them screwing a pin in somewhere else. Screw that!

I also had my X-ray, and it showed that nothing has moved anywhere that it shouldn't. One of the vertebrae will always been a little shorter than it should. I am so curious to see if that means that I am physically shorter than I used to be. Unfortunately it will be oh, only six weeks, before we can measure that. 

While waiting to hear the X-ray results I was buying a biscuit from the vending machine (shame, Godfrey House, where are your healthy options? But it was chocolate and macademia... delicious) a random fella came up to ask me about the halo. I was wondering if I should have known him from somewhere, but turns out that he had one four years ago after a motorbike accident! I was so happy to see that he barely had any scarring on his forehead-- just some tiny little dents. He was in the halo for four and a half months but is all good now. I was happy to hear that it went so well for him, and he was very encouraging. "Don't worry, you'll get through it!"

Finally, the last terrific thing that happened today is that I am officially returning to work! Hooray! My old employers have very kindly found a job for me to do, which I can do mainly from home until I can drive again, and I am so excited to start contributing to society again!