Posted in: Comics | Tagged: chuck rozanski, mile high comics

Chuck Rozanski of Mile High Comics Hospitalised, Not Slowing Down

Chuck hospitalised at the "Good Samaritan Hospital in Lafayette, Colorado after my doctors discovered a spot of bleeding in my brain."

Chuck Rozanski is the very well-known name in comic books, behind Mile High Comics, one of the most prominent comic book retailers in America, with the largest back-issue comics warehouse in the world. The backbone of the US comic collecting market throughout its history, Chuck moved from prominent and large detailed print ads running in the comics themselves to moving online and finding a global print audience for American comics. And approaching 70 years of age, they are still on the road, looking for comic collections wherever they can find them. Except… maybe not this week.

On Facebook and in their newsletter, Chuck talks about being hospitalised at the;

"Good Samaritan Hospital in Lafayette, Colorado after my doctors discovered a spot of bleeding in my brain. This injury resulted from a fall that I took last Friday while out walking with my dog, Nicky, on the access road behind our Jason St. building. A car turned onto the access road, so I stepped aside into a grassy area that contains numerous 10" stumps of Sumac saplings that were cut last summer. I caught my shoelace on the last one, which crashed me to the nearby concrete really hard, causing excruciating bruising of my lower left side rib cage."

"As it turned out, the pain in my ribs was so acute that I did not even notice that I had also suffered a very dangerous whiplash concussion as a result of my fall. That concussion triggered a small bleed in my brain, in the exact same area where I have had a 7 cm long arachnoid cyst since birth. Arachnoid cysts are inert lumps of hardened cerebrospinal fluid that fill in the voids when an infant's brain does not fully develop. In my case, a significant portion of my left side temporal lobe is missing, so a massive cyst formed in its place."

"The really bad news about arachnoid cysts is that they are quite fragile, with a consistency much akin to glass. They also often have multiple tendrils which flair off of them that permeate otherwise healthy portions of the brain. This makes surgically removing them a practical impossibility. Long story a bit shorter, we are guessing that one of those glass-like tendrils in my brain shattered during my fall, and cut into healthy tissue. Thus the bleeding that appeared in my CT scans from last evening, and my overwhelmingly acute headaches and constant nausea of this morning."

"The good news is that a second CT scan that was taken this afternoon appears to show that the bleeding in my brain has either slowed down, or abated entirely. I do actually feel considerably worse today (headaches, nausea, dizziness) than I did yesterday, but it (thankfully) appears that those dreadful symptoms are beginning to abate, and that the worst of the real danger has now passed. That being the case, my neurosurgeon agreed to my going home tonight to rest and recover in my own bed. But, he first made me agree that if any of my symptoms suddenly worsen, that I need to get myself back to the emergency room right away. This may be over, or it may not, so I definitely have to take it really easy for the next couple of weeks."

Chuck gave further details in further posts.

"This is definitely not how I planned to spend my day. I am prepped at the hospital to have dye injected for an emergency C.A.T. scan of my abdomen. I have been increasingly nauseous and dizzy all day. Doctors at Kaiser think that I may have broken ribs, and (more critically) possibly injured my spleen when I fell on a concrete slab while walking my dog, Nicky, last Friday. My fingers are crossed that this is all just a false alarm. My wonderful wife, Nanette Furman, is here to take care of me in case they decide to operate. "

And again…

"I was awake at 4 AM today, unable to sleep because of ongoing pain in my ribs. That discomfort is occurring because I fell really hard on my left side while walking Nicky on Friday, after my foot caught on the dried out stump of a sumac tree in a grove that one of our Jason St. Mega-Store neighbors cut late last summer. I normally carefully avoid the entire area containing those 50 (or so) darn 10" sumac stumps, but a car turned into the roadway behind the building that Nicky and I normally use as a footpath on our daily hikes, forcing us to step aside, directly into the midst of that organic minefield. I successfully avoided all of those rock-hard stumps until my shoelace caught on the tip of the very last one, unexpectedly slamming me in a heartbeat right onto that area of totally unforgiving rocks and concrete."

"Truth be told, I was actually was really fortunate, as while I did end up with (presumably) cracked ribs and a badly wrenched neck, I was not impaled upon the myriad of other dried stumps in that grove, a possibility which might well have proven to be fatal. Or, at the very least, to have caused me severe lacerations. While I most certainly do not enjoy going through my ongoing healing process, my unfortunate accident (during our otherwise typically enjoyable daily stroll) is a stark reminder that it is upon such small blessings that our lives totally depend. No matter how blessed or fortunate we might be, we should never forget that we are all but one drunk driver from instant oblivion. In a nutshell, that is why I try to live my life at full throttle every single day. Paraphrasing an old adage, I try to never forget that each new tomorrow is a pleasant hope, but never a guarantee."

Chuck later continued;

"I slept much better at home than I did in the hospital, and I only have the slightest trace of a headache this morning. I am still quite fatigued, however, and my vision is definitely a bit blurry, so I am going to spend all of today (Wednesday) resting at home. If all goes well, I will return to work at our Jason St. Mega-Store on Thursday, but only to quietly sort comics for Will and Pam to downgrade for you in my little workspace tucked in the back corner. My neurosurgeon wants me to carefully avoid over-stimulating my brain while it is healing, so he asked that try to I avoid loud sounds and interacting with large groups of people. I can easily meet those goals at Jason St. Mega-Store., while still making myself feel (somewhat) useful by sorting through long boxes filled with comics in short bursts. If I need to rest, I have a couch upstairs in my drag room that will let me take naps. This is not a complete return to normality, but it is close enough for now."

"In case you are wondering, aside from the fact that I am a chronic workaholic, I want to get back to my sorting because I am determined to keep Will and Pam stocked up with even more comics to "intentionally downgrade" for you. This downgrading program (where we take VF/NM issues and simply tuck them into any available empty slot in our website offerings) has been remarkably successful for us ever since the first moment after we began steeply reducing costs for you via this mechanism on December 1st. Brain bleed not withstanding, I am totally committed to keeping this very positive program moving forward. I will, however, keep my productivity expectations very low in the beginning, as I readily agree with my neurosurgeon that my brain injury is really quite significant, and could still potentially cause me great harm."

"So you know, my injury is also going to put the kibosh on any cross-country buying trips for at least the next couple of months. They are just too strenuous and stressful. I am hoping that I can still fly to a major awards ceremony to which I have been invited in Florida on April 1st, but I have to be realistic and admit that even that very important journey is now in question. Having what are effectively tiny shards of broken glass embedded in critically-important portions of my brain changes pretty much everything, at least for the next few weeks. My fingers are crossed that this dire peril will resolve itself without any further complications."

Chuck, I understand about keeping yourself busy but please, delegate the sorting out of comics to someone else right now. Consider… being restfully active?

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