About Mick

I used to work as a Glazier during the day. What's that you ask? Oh, a Glazier works with glass. I did everything from installing windows in new houses to retrofitting windows into existing homes. I also installed quite a few showers, from standard bypass tub enclosures to custom 3/8 and 1/2 inch thick custom showers. Sometimes I worked in "regular" homes and sometimes it was very custom home, such as a 10,000 sq.ft. home with it's own marina on Lake Tahoe.

At the end of January 2007, I was lifting a trash can filled with stucco that was trash after being removed from around so windows. When my foreman and I lifted the trash can, there was an audible pop and my shoulder was quite sore. I worked the rest of the week, hoping that I'd just pulled a muscle and the pain would subside. However, that wasn't the case. After going to an urgent care office and spending a few weeks dealing with them, I was referred to an orthopedic surgeon and sent in for an MRI. The MRI showed that there was damage to the rotator cuff. To be sure of things, a second MRI was done, this time with dye. It showed rotator cuff and muscle damage. I went in for surgery in early May and not long after got started with physical therapy. One of the things that I had to endure was having trigger point massages done without any injections for pain. I've got a high threshold for pain and can just block it out, generally. To help block the pain I would visualize racing around Laguna Seca on Wayne Raineys 500CC GP bike and would "go there" while getting the trigger points knocked down. I was almost finished with physical therapy (10 days left) and had been released by the Orthopedist (with restrictions) when the defecation hit the rotary oscillator.

On Tuesday, November 20 I woke up in the middle of the night with what felt like a cramp in the calf of my left leg. I got up and walked around for a few minutes and then went back bed even though it was still hurting quite a bit. I slept off/on till morning but when I got up it was still bothering me. By late-afternoon it had gotten worse and the color in my leg wasn't right. So, Sue and I got in the car and headed for the hospital in Quincy. As soon as the Dr. examined me he told me that something was blocking the blood flow to my leg. They informed me that I would lose at least part of my leg and that they needed to call in the helicopter to take me somewhere that had the right folks to deal with my situation. They called numerous hospitals and finally UC Davis in Sacramento told them to bring me there. I arrived at UC Davis about 9:30 and it took them about 3 1/2 hours to get me stable enough to undergo surgery. I was in surgery from 1:00 till 9:00am where they removed my left leg, from just above the knee.

I didn't realize until 2 weeks later, just before I was discharged, when I had a long talk with the Vascular Surgeon/Specialist, Dr. Pevec, just how close I came to not making it through. With everything that was going on with my leg and my diabetes, I had ketoacidosis to help complicate things. Dr. Pevec said that he was amazed that I was conscious and coherent. He said that with everything that was happening, I should have been comatose. He informed me that I was a tough SOB. I've come to realize through all this that although my tolerance for pain can be a good thing, it can also be very harmful if I don't pay close enough attention to what might be causing it.

Yeah, this page ends strangely but that's what it is right now. I am currently in the process of re-designing this website so if there are not any links above to go to other sections of my website, there soon will be. If some of the links above don't work, they will in the near future. Please be patient and check back soon.