Studio at Jake’s

Here's an update to the whole back surgery situation, as well as an announcement. Sorry, this one's a bit lengthy...
Most days I feel like I've been run over. Having two surgeries in a week is a bit rough. Things are looking up however, I'm 2 weeks post-op, got the drain removed along with the stitches on Tuesday 😅. Feels much better, incision wise, but it pushed October's surgery recovery back. I still struggle with going up and down the stairs and standing for any lengths of time. I have 6 more weeks of IV antibiotics + oral for a while after that. Struggling with edema recently. Seems like everything is working against me here but, despite the minor setbacks I feel more "fixed" now than I have in the last 6 months. So from the bottom of my heart I want to thank you all for the kind thoughts and prayers. My surgeon says there's no earthly reason that I'm doing as well as I am. I told him there's definitely something to the power of prayer.
So, what does this mean? It means I need to make some very difficult and reluctant decisions for this new year. You have all been an amazing clientele. Some of you have become amazing friends and for some close FRamily. While I know some of you are super diehard "stick with me till the end" kinda folks yawl need to go get haircuts 😆. We've laughed together and sometimes cried together. I've watched your kids grow up, move out, join the military, go off to college, get married, and/or make you a grandparent. A client once told me in Norway there's a saying "grandchildren are life's desert". As you all know, this past Memorial Day I got to experience the joy of life's desert, enter my 1st grandkid, Kohen.
So, for my health, I need to step away from the barber chair. My biggest and hardest decision of 2025, realizing I need to announce my retirement, effective as of today. After a 15 year career in the Army, I'm getting to close the chapter on a 15 year barbering career as well. The next 30+ are Julie's 🤣. Have a happy New Year everyone. Please stop me if you see me out. I'm gonna miss our 30 minute catch ups.

Well, it's been a week. Surgery on Monday with a follow up surgery on Wednesday... 😅. Monday they reopened my incision, irrigated and debris (I&D) the surgical site, and attached a wound vac for 48 hours. Wednesday they went back in and repeated the I&D, pulled out the wound vac, and installed a drain... ugh😣. It's definitely not the most comfortable thing in the world and is probably the most painful the incision has been to date. On the upside, I'm heading home today and look forward to doing so. The downside is having to keep my schedule shut down for the duration. This time I'm coming home on 8 weeks of IV antibiotics followed by 4-8 more of oral antibiotics afterwards. Seems the Humira shot I was on is what's caused all of the complications with this infection. Unfortunately it takes 6 months for your system to recover from this immunosuppressant. I will NOT be going back on it. It's also what caused my fungal lung infection back in '20 when COVID was the worry. I get something called histoplasmosis 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️.
At any rate, happy to be going home before Christmas. Unfortunately, I have no idea as to when I will be reopening my schedule. Thanks in advance to everyone for the warm thoughts and relentless prayer. I feel like once I'm over this infection life will return to a relative normalcy. I'll keep everyone posted as to what's going on in the future. As before, if you're needing haircuts I would point you to Tim at Colonial Barbershop or Josh at Michael's Barbershop. Biggest difference here is Colonial is walk in only whereas Michael's is appointment only. Take care and have a Merry Christmas🎄🎁.

Well, here I go again 🤷‍♂️. I'm back in the hospital 😣. Here I am just short of my 10 week follow up and yesterday morning I noticed that there was a swollen spot directly under my incision. Not wanting to play a guessing game, Julie and I headed to the ER. They've CT'd the area and unfortunately the infection has returned. I'm currently scheduled to have the surgical site cleaned out. I will be in the hospital for the next 3-4 days so I'll be canceling appointments for the week. So sorry everyone, it's a giant kick in the pants having JUST come back to work this past week 🤦‍♂️. I'd like to say scheduling will open again come the 1st of the year but I've no idea what the future holds. So for the time being all scheduling is closed. I'll keep everyone up on what's going on.

Hello everyone, Happy Late Thanksgiving. I hope everyone's holiday was as special as mine. I personally gave thanks for a crackerjack surgical team and especially the advocate who put them together, my wife Julie. Thanks for making sure they were on point and for being there every step of the way. Also, thank you all for the warm thoughts and kind words throughout this time.
So I think I left off with having a post about having 6 weeks of IV antibiotics. Well, my 6 weeks ended the day before Thanksgiving and I was able to get the PICC line removed the day after! Im so excited to get back now that I can move my arm a bit better. I'm getting around much better as well and I've got my 10 week post op appointment coming up so hopefully we'll get a little more insight as to how recovery went. All that being said, I've opened up my schedule for the holidays!
Appointment times are open and filling up fast so grab one while you can. Be patient with me tho, I'm still needing to take breaks in between.