Bad, Good, and Great

Ah, life. Always interesting.

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but about six months ago I discovered that a small spot on the back of my right hand had become incredibly sensitive. Just drying it off with a towel felt like a blowtorch was being applied to my skin. The pain slowly faded over several weeks, and was replaced by complete numbness in that one spot.

The same thing then happened just above my right ankle. Over the next few months the numb spots regained normal sensation. I had no idea what was happening, so I mentioned it to my doctor at my next checkup.

She had no clue either; basic central nervous system tests all showed that my CNS was in great shape (go figure). So I was given an appointment to see a neurologist.

I'll shorten this up: he doesn't know what it was, but it was almost certainly nothing important. I had actually almost forgotten the whole thing, since I'd had no problem for months.

However, while I was there I mentioned that I'd also had surface numbness (but no pain) on the outer tops of my thighs for many years. I've been worried about it, off and on; I imagined everything from muscular dystrophy to leprosy. But it turns out to be Meralgia Paresthetica, which is also called lateral femoral cutaneous nerve entrapment. What is it? Well, there are two nerves which convey skin sensation from those areas of the thighs. In some people those nerves lose function; the condition is sometimes associated with obesity.

And that's it. It doesn't lead to anything worse, or cause any real problems; just a loss of a bit of sensation on the outer thigh. Which is quite a relief. So the bad thing turned out to be as good as could have been expected.

Coming up next, the great thing.

Bad, Good, and Great

Ah, life. Always interesting.

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but about six months ago I discovered that a small spot on the back of my right hand had become incredibly sensitive. Just drying it off with a towel felt like a blowtorch was being applied to my skin. The pain slowly faded over several weeks, and was replaced by complete numbness in that one spot.

The same thing then happened just above my right ankle. Over the next few months the numb spots regained normal sensation. I had no idea what was happening, so I mentioned it to my doctor at my next checkup.

She had no clue either; basic central nervous system tests all showed that my CNS was in great shape (go figure). So I was given an appointment to see a neurologist.

I'll shorten this up: he doesn't know what it was, but it was almost certainly nothing important. I had actually almost forgotten the whole thing, since I'd had no problem for months.

However, while I was there I mentioned that I'd also had surface numbness (but no pain) on the outer tops of my thighs for many years. I've been worried about it, off and on; I imagined everything from muscular dystrophy to leprosy. But it turns out to be Meralgia Paresthetica, which is also called lateral femoral cutaneous nerve entrapment. What is it? Well, there are two nerves which convey skin sensation from those areas of the thighs. In some people those nerves lose function; the condition is sometimes associated with obesity.

And that's it. It doesn't lead to anything worse, or cause any real problems; just a loss of a bit of sensation on the outer thigh. Which is quite a relief. So the bad thing turned out to be as good as could have been expected.

Coming up next, the great thing.

Lost

Some things I don't talk about.

That's rare, though. There's not much in my life that I keep secret. Mostly it's the things that really scare the hell out of me (like the dental thing) or that make me unbearably sad - and fortunately there aren't too many of those. In fact, right now I can't think of a single one!

Here's why.

Teri and I bought a video camera a few months before Sebastian was born. When we went to the hospital I brought the camera with me.

Now, I should say that the idea of filming an actual birth seems pretty silly to me, not to mention kinda gross. I wasn't going to film Sebastian's birth at all; what we wanted to do was record some memories of the whole experience.

So we filmed ourselves the night before, and then the camera stayed off until Sebastian was actually born and on the warming table. He was just a few minutes old.

The nurses had cut his cord because it was wrapped around his neck, but they had me trim it down after they'd made sure he was okay. And there he was, a tiny, demented-looking little red-haired baby, looking like a very angry and suspicious beady-eyed old man. For some reason he reminded me of my grandmother.

Then he reached out and grabbed my finger.

...

If you're not a parent, I can't really tell you how that felt.

I was still filming with my other hand, although I nearly dropped the camera - videography wasn't really what I was thinking about at that moment.

Soon after that Sebastian was brought to Teri, and I was able to film their first face-to-face meeting - not very well, but I'm not a cameraman.

And I filmed a lot more over the next few days...holding Sebastian in the darkness on that first night and singing "Banks of the Ohio" to him, the family coming to see him, and many more irreplaceable memories. I screwed up with the camera a couple of times that weekend and copied over a few seconds of footage, but not too much - the best moments were still preserved.

But I never marked the tape. And sometime in the last year I realized that I had probably taped over everything. I gathered all the tapes I could find and started going over them, hoping desperately that I was wrong; as I went through the stack I carefully labeled and write-protected each tape.

Finally I was done, and couldn't deny it any more: the tape was gone, almost certainly destroyed.

I have no way to convey just how bad I felt about that. It wasn't normal; I couldn't bear to talk or think about it, and I stopped using the video camera altogether. Sometimes I blamed the bastard who sold me that defective computer; if the TV card had worked right, I could have copied all the footage to video CD as I'd planned. But I know that ultimately it was my own fault for screwing up, and it hurt like hell.

Yesterday Teri was on a cleaning jag. Deep in a closet she found the original box that the video camera came in. And in that box were several empty tape cases...and a single mini-tape.

Yes.

Lost

Some things I don't talk about.

That's rare, though. There's not much in my life that I keep secret. Mostly it's the things that really scare the hell out of me (like the dental thing) or that make me unbearably sad - and fortunately there aren't too many of those. In fact, right now I can't think of a single one!

Here's why.

Teri and I bought a video camera a few months before Sebastian was born. When we went to the hospital I brought the camera with me.

Now, I should say that the idea of filming an actual birth seems pretty silly to me, not to mention kinda gross. I wasn't going to film Sebastian's birth at all; what we wanted to do was record some memories of the whole experience.

So we filmed ourselves the night before, and then the camera stayed off until Sebastian was actually born and on the warming table. He was just a few minutes old.

The nurses had cut his cord because it was wrapped around his neck, but they had me trim it down after they'd made sure he was okay. And there he was, a tiny, demented-looking little red-haired baby, looking like a very angry and suspicious beady-eyed old man. For some reason he reminded me of my grandmother.

Then he reached out and grabbed my finger.

...

If you're not a parent, I can't really tell you how that felt.

I was still filming with my other hand, although I nearly dropped the camera - videography wasn't really what I was thinking about at that moment.

Soon after that Sebastian was brought to Teri, and I was able to film their first face-to-face meeting - not very well, but I'm not a cameraman.

And I filmed a lot more over the next few days...holding Sebastian in the darkness on that first night and singing "Banks of the Ohio" to him, the family coming to see him, and many more irreplaceable memories. I screwed up with the camera a couple of times that weekend and copied over a few seconds of footage, but not too much - the best moments were still preserved.

But I never marked the tape. And sometime in the last year I realized that I had probably taped over everything. I gathered all the tapes I could find and started going over them, hoping desperately that I was wrong; as I went through the stack I carefully labeled and write-protected each tape.

Finally I was done, and couldn't deny it any more: the tape was gone, almost certainly destroyed.

I have no way to convey just how bad I felt about that. It wasn't normal; I couldn't bear to talk or think about it, and I stopped using the video camera altogether. Sometimes I blamed the bastard who sold me that defective computer; if the TV card had worked right, I could have copied all the footage to video CD as I'd planned. But I know that ultimately it was my own fault for screwing up, and it hurt like hell.

Yesterday Teri was on a cleaning jag. Deep in a closet she found the original box that the video camera came in. And in that box were several empty tape cases...and a single mini-tape.

Yes.