Recovery Update: The Scabs Are Leaving, the Scar Is Staying

Healing apparently has stages.

First, everything looks terrible.

Then it somehow looks even worse.

Then one day I look at it and realize, “Wait… that actually looks a lot better.”

That’s where I seem to be today.

👁️ The Eye: Boring Is Still Beautiful

My eye continues to look better. There’s still some redness, but compared with where this adventure started after the silicone oil removal, I'll take it.

More importantly, the visual effects are still gone.

No dot. No bubble. No floaters. No horizon. No eclipse.

I never thought I’d be this excited about seeing absolutely nothing unusual.

I'm continuing the drops and watching the eye, but boredom remains my favorite development.

💪 The Scraped Arm: Crust City Is Being Demolished

Now for the arm.

Look at the difference.

Most of that giant, nasty scab that has been starring in these updates is finally gone. What’s underneath is pink, fresh-looking skin with one stubborn darker area hanging around.

And I think we can officially call this one:

I'm going to have a scar.

Considering what this thing looked like immediately after the fall—and then during its glorious Crust City phase—a scar seems like a pretty reasonable souvenir.

I suppose I could make up an impressive story about how I got it.

Shark attack?

Bar fight in Singapore?

Saving a family from a burning building?

Nope.

I fell.

Sometimes reality just doesn't cooperate with the legend.

🩸 The Fistula Arm: Where Did the Stitch Go?

Meanwhile, the fistulagram site keeps healing, too.

The dissolvable stitch appears to be doing exactly what the name advertised. The area is still visible and there’s some discoloration, but it looks considerably less dramatic.

Still waiting on that Hello Kitty Band-Aid upgrade. 🎀

I haven't forgotten.

Three Different Parts. Same Direction.

So today's recovery report is considerably less disgusting than some of the previous editions:

Eye: less red, no dots or floaters.
Scraped arm: most of the scab is gone, new skin is showing—and yes, there will be a scar.
Fistula arm: healing nicely after fistulagram #4.

The scar on my arm will probably stick around long after I've stopped writing these daily updates.

That's okay.

Scars are just receipts proving my body paid the bill and kept going.

And this particular receipt comes with a very simple description:

Fell down. Got back up.

More Ships, Fewer Excuses: My Travel Plans for Late 2026 and 2027

My calendar is starting to look like I’m avoiding being home. I kinda am.

There’s Las Vegas. There’s Cozumel on Halloween. There’s a fraternity alumni holiday gathering with a name that covers several celebrations at once. And there are cruises, because apparently my preferred way to unpack once is to have the entire hotel move.

I get to live this life—the only one I have—and I’m putting a few more things on the calendar worth looking forward to.

First up: Las Vegas, with a Filipino accent

In early October, I have a Saturday ticket to Pinoy Fest in Las Vegas. I love the Filipino culture, the food, and the people, so this was an easy decision.

Just Saturday. I’m trying to show some restraint in this travel schedule.

Halloween in Cozumel

At the end of October, I’m sailing on Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Seas: leave Tampa, spend a day at sea, stop in Cozumel on Halloween, enjoy another day at sea, and return to Tampa.

I’ve taken a Halloween cruise before. It was interesting. On a cruise, you already spend some time wondering about people’s wardrobe decisions. Halloween adds the question, “Is that a costume, or just his vacation shirt?”

Radiance is a smaller, more classic ship, without all the newer attractions—the water slides, ice-skating rink, Johnny Rockets, and so on. That suits me. I don’t need every vacation to include an amusement park and a waiver.

A ship, the ocean, and time to enjoy both will do nicely.

ChrisKwanukah and the $30 pancake

December 13, 2026, is the Tau Epsilon Phi, Phi Chi Alumni Club ChrisKwanukah event.

I went last year, flying into HPN, where a bit of snow wreaked havoc. Somewhere in that experience, I ended up with a $30 pancake and Diet Pepsi.

For that price, I felt the pancake should at least have helped with my luggage.

Still, I’m planning to return. Seeing people matters. Shared history matters. Apparently, I’m also willing to give winter air travel another opportunity to test my personality.

Trying MSC in January 2027

In early January, I’m taking an MSC cruise from Miami to the Bahamas. MSC will be new to me.

I’ve read the good reviews and the bad ones. The ships are supposed to be beautiful, while the food and service can apparently be hit or miss. I’m going with an open mind and will form my own opinion.

Reading cruise reviews is its own voyage. Two people can get off the same ship convinced they visited entirely different planets.

Utopia, with a road trip attached

There’s also the three-day Royal Caribbean trip on Utopia of the Seas from Port Canaveral that I’ve written about before.

I plan to drive to that port. Put the bags in the car, get myself there, and board the ship. That’s a travel day I can appreciate.

My car hasn't charged me extra for a suitcase yet.

Yesterday’s booking: back to Celebrity Reflection

Yesterday, I booked Celebrity Reflection for July 30 through August 2, 2027—a three-night Key West and Bahamas cruise, with a balcony on Deck 10.

I’ve been on this ship twice, stopping in Key West both times. I’d also visited Key West twice before those sailings, so we’re reasonably well acquainted.

This trip includes Grand Bahama, and I have absolutely no intention of getting off the ship.

I like the ship. I liked the staff on my last two voyages. I liked the experience. That’s enough reason to go back.

I'm not required to turn every port stop into a field trip. Sometimes the destination is the balcony I already paid for.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be conducting a thorough inspection of the ocean from a seated position.

Yes, there’s room for a future ex-wife

There is a spot for a future ex-wife. A sense of humor would be helpful, along with an appreciation for cruising and my occasional decision to visit a country without actually stepping onto it.

Passport not required for eligible U.S. citizens on qualifying round-trip U.S. cruises; a certified birth certificate and valid government-issued photo ID can do the job. We’ll check the specific sailing’s requirements before packing. Romance is one thing; being denied boarding is another. Celebrity’s travel-document requirements

Let’s start with a cruise and see whether we can agree on dinner before involving attorneys.

Why I’m doing all this

I was told that a lot of amputees and dialysis patients end up sitting around and disengaging from life. I know what withdrawing feels like because I did it myself.

Everyone’s circumstances are different. I can only speak for mine: I decided I wanted to take some risks and enjoy more of the little part of the universe I get to occupy.

Being an amputee and being on dialysis are parts of my life. Travel takes planning. Some things require more effort. But I still want experiences, people to meet, familiar faces to see, and stories to bring home.

Even if one of those stories involves a financially ambitious pancake.

I get to live this life. I want to be present for it—with a few boarding passes, some Filipino food, Halloween in Cozumel, and a balcony waiting somewhere ahead.

Life Beyond Cloud Nine: Yes, the Puppies Poop on the Clean Floor, Too

If you’re looking for a blog where every day is sunshine, every vacation is flawless, and every family gathering looks like a greeting card, you may have taken a wrong turn.

My blog, social media posts, and videos are a very unfiltered version of life. Sometimes I’m on cloud nine. Sometimes I’m trying to figure out how to get my popcorn and soda to my movie theater seat.

Both belong in the story.

For at least ten years, LinkedIn was about the extent of my social media presence. And even there, I didn’t post. I had either deleted Facebook or stopped engaging with it. I wasn’t on the newer platforms the kids were using—the TikTok, the Instagram, the Snapchat, and whatever else I was supposed to be downloading.

I stepped away because comparing my life to everybody else’s was doing a number on me.

Everywhere I looked, people seemed to be living exceptional lives. Amazing vacations. Awesome careers. Luxurious homes. Happy marriages. Families that weren’t toxic.

Meanwhile, I looked at my own life and wondered why mine didn’t look like that. The comparison drove me crazy. I felt depressed and anxious, and scrolling gave me more reasons to feel like I was falling behind.

So I stopped.

For a long time, I needed to stay away.

Then Laura, my physical therapist at MUSC, suggested that sharing my experience could give other amputees hope. Maybe someone trying to figure out their own life after an amputation could find something useful in mine.

That gave me a reason to come back.

I had no clue then that God would give me the strength to battle end-stage renal disease, failing eyes, and more. I came back to share my experience as an amputee, and life kept giving me more to write about.

My faith is part of that story. So are the hard days. Having faith doesn’t mean I suddenly have a perfect life to show off. It means I can tell you where I find strength while I’m living through it.

I write and post because I want life to feel relatable. I want someone to read something I share and think, “Okay. Somebody else gets it.”

And yes, I have some awesome experiences.

I go on cruises while continuing my search for a future ex-wife to share them with. Apparently, romance is alive and well, and my marketing strategy needs work.

I watch a bunch of movies. I also ask for help getting my popcorn and soda to my seat. That little detail belongs in the story just as much as whether the movie was any good.

There is enjoyment in my life. There is also illness, uncertainty, and the practical business of needing a hand sometimes. I can have a wonderful experience without everything else suddenly being wonderful.

That’s what you’ll find here.

If you’re tired of reading about how perfect everyone else’s life appears to be, follow along. Share my page with someone who could use a little hope, a laugh, or the comfort of knowing they aren’t the only one figuring things out.

I’ll keep sharing the cruises, the movies, the struggles, the faith, and whatever happens with that future ex-wife search.

Life isn’t all unicorns, puppies, and kittens that don’t poop on the floor.

Yes, they poop on a clean floor, too.

Recovery Update: Three Body Parts, Three Different Definitions of “Healing”

Another day, another round of “What exactly is my body doing now?”

The good news is that all three things I’ve been watching seem to be moving in the right direction. They just apparently have very different ideas about what the healing process should look like.

👁️ The Eye: Still Red, But No More Special Effects

The eye is still noticeably red and looks irritated, but the biggest news remains the best news: no dot. No bubble. No floaters. No eclipse. No horizon.

After everything I was seeing following the silicone oil removal, I’m perfectly happy with boring vision.

I’m continuing the eye drops and keeping an eye on the eye — yes, I said it.

💪 The Scraped Arm: Welcome to Crust City

The arm continues its transformation from open road rash into what looks like an archaeological excavation.

It is DRY. It is CRUSTY. It is SCABBED.

There’s also that whitish, flaky skin around the edges as everything dries out. At this point, I’m basically waiting for the scabs to decide they’ve overstayed their welcome and fall off on their own.

It may actually look more disgusting now than it did when it happened.

But underneath all that crustiness, it seems to be healing.

Do. Not. Pick. The. Scab.

I’m saying that mostly to myself.

🩸 And Then There's the Fistula Arm...

My fourth fistulagram was yesterday, and today the access site looks remarkably uneventful.

The little incision is there. There’s some bruising and discoloration around it, but compared with everything else going on with my body, this one is almost disappointingly boring.

The dissolvable stitch is doing its thing.

Still no Hello Kitty Band-Aid. 🎀

Apparently vascular surgery has excellent balloons but a terrible selection of designer wound care.

So today's scorecard:

Eye: still red, but the visual special effects are gone.
Scraped arm: crustier than ever, but healing.
Fistula arm: bruised, sore, stitched, and recovering.

None of it looks particularly glamorous.

But I'll take ugly and healing over pretty and getting worse any day.

Recovery Update: THE DOT IS GONE! 👁️🎉

Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting this update when I woke up this morning.

I got up to head to dialysis, did my usual check of the left eye, and went looking for my little unwanted passenger — the mysterious “air bubble” that has been hanging around in my vision.

And it was SUPER, SUPER SMALL.

We’ve gone from something noticeable at the bottom of my vision, to roughly the size of a 1-cent euro coin yesterday, to something this morning that looked almost like a pinhole.

It was so tiny that it looked different, too.

Before, the dot had been translucent. I could sort of see through it. This morning, it was so small that it just looked dark.

And it was moving around a little.

There were also a few other floaters joining the party, because apparently my left eye needed one final going-away celebration.

Then I got to dialysis.

I looked for the dot again.

Nothing.

Looked around.

Nothing.

Moved my eye.

NOTHING.

THE DOT IS GONE!

GONE! 👁️🎉

After days of calling it a horizon indicator, vinaigrette, an eclipse, a euro coin, and whatever else I could come up with, the mysterious dot that my doctor thought might be an air bubble appears to have finally disappeared from my vision.

I am certainly not declaring the entire eye adventure finished. I still have healing to do, and after everything this eye has put me through, I'm not tempting fate by announcing that Left Eye Airlines has permanently landed.

But today?

I'll take the win.

Now, about that arm...

Yeah.

While the eye seems to have decided it wanted some positive attention today, my arm apparently looked at the assignment and said:

“Don't worry. I'll keep things disgusting.”

It is crusty.

It is dark.

It looks nasty.

And judging by the picture, it may actually be getting more impressive in the grossness department while it heals.

So today's scoreboard:

👁️ Eye: DOT GONE!
🫧 Bubble: Apparently departed.
👀 Floaters: Still making occasional appearances.
💪 Arm: Crusty as hell.
🩹 Recovery: Still moving forward.

There have been a lot of strange developments during this recovery, but watching that dot get smaller day after day and then finally disappear is one update I've been waiting to write.

Sometimes progress happens slowly.

And sometimes I get to dialysis and realize...

THE DOT IS GONE!