Here's the skinny:
He believes that as a result of my DCS hit in June I have a lesion on my spinal cord in my neck near the base of the brain stem. The reason that he thinks it is a spinal cord lesion rather than one in the brain is that I have detrimental neurological responses in my right hand and my right foot, but NOT on the left side of my body. Were I to have a brain lesion the responses would most likely be on both sides of my body. He feels that my hit was NOT the result of a shower of nitrogen bubbles being forced from one side of my heart to the other due to exertion, but was probably caused by the formation of a single bubble in the spinal cord itself. Spinal cord tissue material is one of the slowest tissues when it comes to absorbing gas as well as off-gassing. Dive computer algorythms are normally based on "fast" tissues, so having both of my computers clear me prior to my hit is another indication that a "slow" tissue was involved. Since the residual symptoms from a neurological DCS hit normally fade after three months or so, he believes that the ones that remain will be with me permanently. Since this basically involves sensitivity to temperature and slight tingling in my feet and not much else (of which I am aware) I can live with that.
Regarding diving.....he sees no reason for me to stop diving. However, he wants me to start slowly. I asked him for specifics about that, and what he wants me to do is make my first 3 - 4 dives relatively shallow ones of around 50 feet or less. He does NOT want me to dive with my rebreather or use Nitrox on these first few dives, because he wants to discover if there will be any problems with using compressed air first. Switching to pure O2 at 20 feet is OK with him, but he wants the dives themselves to be on compressed air. Once I have done these first few dives above 50 feet on compressed air, I am to contact him for a consultation. If there have been no physical issues, then I can move to slightly deeper depths to see how those dives go. The goal is to slowly creep down to those beautifully deep technical depths and gases one small step at a time.
SO......today, in the beautiful calm and sunny weather we had,
, Valerie and I met at Redondo to do the first of my 50 FSW dives. The wind and wave action made our entry slightly, ahem, "interesting", and together the two of us provided much merriment for the few bystanders....."Mommy, Mommy, look at the idiot divers!" 
Visibility was one step above horrid, but we had a fine time slowly cruising about looking for the "usual suspects" as our friend Bob would say. Valerie knows Redondo like the back of her hand, so I just basically followed her around as she gave me the out-of-towners tour. We saw a beautiful little Red Octopus denned up inside a pipe, a golden Helmet Crab on the VW wreck, and a large flourescent green pen-point gunnel, (it was the biggest gunnel that I have personally ever seen), poking his nose out of a large pipe stuck in the bottom. All the while I was constantly monitoring myself, waiting to see if even a glimmer of a headache would appear.....but I felt GREAT throughout the entire dive! Valerie kept tabs on me throughout the entire diving, always checking to make sure that nothing untoward was going on and that I was doing well.
After 60 minutes of BT we headed toward shore, slowly ascending the shallow slope to 20 FSW. At that time I switched over to pure O2 that I had been carrying slung in an AL 40 stage bottle. We did a 3 minute stop there at 20 FSW and then continued up slope, with me remaining on O2 until we finally surfaced at 67 minutes run-time.
As we staggered onto the beach in the howling wind and rain, unbeknownst to us the staff at Salty's restaurant was watching us through the windows and commenting as to what on earth could be down there that would get people to do what we were doing! About 15 - 20 minutes later Valerie and I were seated in their restaurant warming up on their INCREDIBLE seafood chowder and listening as they described watching us come ashore.
When I made it home there was already an e-mail waiting for me from Dr. Stankus wanting to know how the dive went....how's THAT for a good diving doc?!!!!
All in all, a delightful day! I feel fortunate to have such friends to accompany me as I make my way back into the depths. Thank you SO much, Val!!!!! You will never know how much I appreciated you today!
- John
I appreciate all the information you've shared about your "hit." I think most people who have a DCS hit don't talk about it, or write about it, at any rate. It's been quite educational, following your progress; and I'm delighted that you're back in the water again. Please keep us up to date with future dive reports!
