Cousin Jim’s Biggest Fight: Bluefin Tuna, Reconstructive Surgery & Never Quitting

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Hey everybody, Cousin Jim here.

[00:00:03]This video is going to be a little bit different. Uh, tomorrow I'm having a surgery.

[00:00:11]And I know you guys are going to think it's because I'm making all this money doing YouTube, but that isn't correct.

[00:00:20]Um, many years ago I was involved in a bad bicycle accident and I broke my jaw and I um this part right here was flapped up.

[00:00:41]I broke this orbital uh bone here. This cheekbone was caved in.

[00:00:49]Um, I lost some teeth down through here from breaking it here. I lost teeth in my jawline here. I've had multiple surgeries to reconstruct my face.

[00:01:04]And now, if you can see, this eye is drooped halfway closed. I right there I cannot see my finger because of all the skin and everything. My peripheral vision is gone. My upper vision is gone. So what is what I'm having done tomorrow is they're going to be lifting here.

[00:01:30]They're going to be taking some skin out of here to open this eye back up.

[00:01:35]They're going to be taking lots of skin from here to open this eye up. If you look at my eyes, the left one is ovalshaped and the right one is more rounded shaped. They're going to try and reshape this eye so that it comes back together there. So, this is all fixing reconstructive surgery. Now, the amazing thing is with the state of medicine in California, I took a field of vision test and failed it miserably because I can only see about right here.

[00:02:17]And so, that right there is a medical reason to open everything back up. But the health insurance denied it, saying it's just cosmetic. It's not necessary.

[00:02:30]Well, I resubmitted and got that taken care of, but it's still just in the testing that I had to have to be approved for the surgery, I had to do it twice because my surgery was cancelled the first time, and it was over three months since they'd had all my labs and chest X-rays and everything. So, I had to go do it all again. So you people out there with the uh dealing with with medical issues, it's pretty phenomenal how difficult it actually is to work within the system here in the state of California.

[00:03:12]But I am proceeding ahead with everything. Um but like like right here on my lip um my lip was split. This was split all the way through. I had about 150 stitches up through here to bring this skin back down. I had no feeling here in my forehead for years. I now can feel it again, which is actually kind of nice.

[00:03:38]There was a time when you touched it, it felt like I was being hit by an electric poker. So, I might not make a fishing video for a couple of weeks um until I get cleared from the posttop, but so they're going to be they're going to be doing a I think they call it a upper bluff, a brow lift. And it's it's not because I'm vain and making all this money to try and look younger on TV.

[00:04:12]Nope. It's because it's necessary and I cannot wait to get my peripheral vision back. I have good vision and so I I can spot birds at three and four miles away and it's highly necessary for what I like to do for the fishing. So, we are we're proceeding ahead. I'm going to try and get them to actually film my surgery. I don't know if they will or not, but I I certainly am going to have them give it a try and I'll let the doctors keep that and and use it, but I also want to put it out on my channel.

[00:04:56]So, this is the first of it. Um, I go in tomorrow, which is Wednesday. Wish me luck. See you guys after the surgery.

[00:05:06]>> Hey everybody, Cousin Jim. It's uh Wednesday morning. I'm on my way to surgery. We're going to get this face fixed. Get the eye taken care of so I can see. It's going to be a great day.

[00:05:20]You're going to enjoy all the bandages afterwards on the way home. So, here we go. We're on the way. Let's see if we can get this taken care of. All right. I haven't seen this yet. You're going to see it first right here. Uh the glasses are coming off. I've got some goop in my eyes. cuz he said it's antibacteria stuff. So, everything is just fuzzy. I can't even see what's going on. But you can see I've got some stitching up above, probably some swelling on the sides. They told me to leave these pads on for 4 hours and 15 minutes. So, this is straight out of the surgery center.

[00:05:58]Just sat in the car. We're going to get headed for home. Thanks for watching these videos. I'm on my way home from the surgery center. Uh it's in the afternoon, early afternoon, and so I've stopped right here at El Burrito in Redlands getting a meat, bean, and cheese and a large diet coke.

[00:06:20]So I think after 4 hours, I'll be able to take these off. I can't see right now.

[00:06:28]There's some kind of ointment in my eye.

[00:06:30]So, looks like I have wax paper over my eyes. You cannot see what's going on.

[00:06:38]But I'm going to take you through the healing process and we'll hopefully be fishing in a week or so. Uh they made my posttop for January 3rd and then I'll be headed to Florida to do some uh remodeling there on one of the apartments that I just bought. Hope you guys like these videos. If you do, hit that subscribe button, tell a friend, ring the bell, and ask me anything you want in the comments. I'm happy to tell you.

[00:07:08]You know, one of the things from this accident, I lost the ability to place time in my mind. So, stuff that happened a week ago, I think it happened a year ago or two years ago or five years ago.

[00:07:20]Fortunately, we had a major incident here in the United States, so I can usually tell whether it was precoid or after CO. So, a little insight into how my mind works.

[00:07:32]>> Everybody, it's been about 4 hours. I've got all kinds of ointment and stuff to keep everything moist. I just pulled the pads off of both sides and um this is what I look like 4 hours after surgery.

[00:07:47]This is the first time I've seen it. I'm looking in the mirror as I'm looking over the top of the camera here. So, interesting cut right there.

[00:07:57]Fortunately, that's not my new eyebrow.

[00:08:00]My eyebrows are still where they were supposed to be. So, I don't think I'm going to end up looking like Kenny Rogers. That was definitely not what not what was trying to happen. So, I hope guys hope you guys don't mind this.

[00:08:14]We're moving ahead. Help me get to 15,000. Here we go. Here we are, guys.

[00:08:21]18 hours after the surgery.

[00:08:27]Now, I woke up, well, before I went to sleep last night, it felt like I had a tear running down my face right here.

[00:08:38]But what it actually was was there was blood coming out of the corner of that incision there and it was running down onto my onto my uh robe here. So it was just a streak of blood and then it would dripped to right there.

[00:09:01]And with with that I could actually it just stayed in a line. I could actually peel it like a scab off off the side of my face. There's some of it right there still.

[00:09:16]So that that was um before I went to sleep. So it was probably 6 eight hours ago.

[00:09:28]and and I could tell that I was starting to swell in the eyelids be before I went to sleep, but my my eyes definitely definitely swollen this morning.

[00:09:49]I don't really heard, so that's a good thing.

[00:09:55]But there it is. the my eyebrows are straight.

[00:10:02]That cut will just be a fine line like what I've got up in my forehead already. So, everything's going to everything's going to be okay. I hope you after the surgery, my eyes were way more even, but this morning this one is way more swollen.

[00:10:23]So, I hope that it doesn't stay flattened out like it like it was, but we'll get that figured out.

[00:10:34]So, this is the progress 18 hours later.

[00:10:39]It's now 24 hours since I got out of surgery.

[00:10:46]Definitely got a lot of swelling there on my left eye still. My right eye is still pretty swollen, but the left is swollen even more. But I can see a little better already, and I can tell my peripheral vision is already coming back. So, we'll just be checking in over the next next few days and uh post posting these up.

[00:11:10]Hope you guys like this video.