reconstruction?

[mike]

does a reconstruction count as a body mod? if so i have an interesting story to share and maybe a couple pictures.

[iamblackbird]

I think that's one of those things that's totally the opinion of an individual. Do you see it as a body mod?

Either way you answer, I'd like to hear a story!

[mike]

i consider it a mod because it was an artificial way of reshaping my body, although the shape was the original shape prior to an accident.

this happened in march of 2007.
one day, due to my own negligence (i let something slip my mind that any other day i would have remembered), i had a bit of a mishap, while i was setting up some machinery in my shop. to make a long story short as far as the accident is concerned, a pneumatic piston about 1.25" in diameter came flying at me producing quite a hole in my hand.
this happened at about 9:30 am. by 10 i was in a hospital room. i think telling them i crushed my hand in such a calm demeanor on admittance and cracking a few jokes about the situation led everyone at the hospital to believe it wasn't a bad injury. not the case at all, just that i have a high tolerance for pain and a sense of humor. they told me i would probably need a couple stitches and had most likely bruised a bone. you could practically see the color drain from the nurse's face when she unwrapped it. once i was in the room they examined it and took me out to do some x-rays. it was determined that this was going to need a surgical fix. i sat and waited until 7:30 p.m. in total agony for a surgeon to get to me. i had no say in what surgeon i would get but i am very thankful that i got such a good surgeon.
before putting me under anesthesia they told me that they would have to remove tissue from some part of my body to use in my hand. they gave me the choice of my leg or a butt cheek. i jokingly told them, "i can't let you deface a national treasure, take it from my leg!" everyone laughed and the next thing i knew i was waking up, and in even more pain than before but i was all patched up.
after straightening up all the broken pieces inside my hand, grafting new tissue and whatever other repairs were necessary, it was decided that i lost enough bone mass that for my hand to appear relatively normal and to regain full usage, i would need an apparatus to hold the bone fragments spread while new bone grew. that was another 8 weeks of agony with an external device screwed into my bones.
as of only a few months after the removal of that device, i regained 95% of my mobility in the hand. it functions completely normally nowadays aside from some minor pain in my bones that has never gone away. this was a while back but i'll see if i can dig up a few pictures to post.

[bige]

Not to mimimize your experience, it sounds painful, but it wasn't intentional. By that reasoning, my cancer surgery doesn't count either, even though I'm missing a couple of good sized chunks of tissue.

Now that tongue splitting counts big time.

[mike]

i considered it a mod because it was an artificial way of altering my body, even though it was altering it back to a previous state.

now i agree with you though. mods are intentional. the root cause of this was unintentional making it not a mod. i don't know why i didn't think of that.

and since you mentioned the tongue, it's doing well. still immensely swollen and painful but appears to be healing well. i can't wait to eat solid food again. you would think the pain would be what's keeping me from eating but not really. it's just that my tongue is so swollen it's next to impossible to maneuver food to the back of my mouth. i ate a slice of lunchmeat yesterday and it took me a half hour. taking mass quantities of ibuprofen to reduce swelling... i have to toss the pills to the back of my throat, if i miss i have to let it fall out and try again. it's that clumsy and inflexible at this point. still don't regret it one bit.

[bige]

Glad to hear it's going well. You're a braver man than I. This is why I originally suggested the tie off method. Though less popular with with the moderators here, the level of trauma involved would be considreably less.

Interested in seeing pics of both hand and tongue.