Post Tonsillectomy and Neck Di-section Surgery - One Month Later

Well, it's been four weeks after my surgery, the time my ENT said it would take for me to heal from the surgery.  However, I think his definition of healed is different than what I had in mind.  I now believe his definition was that would be the time it took for my wounds to be healed to the point that they are fully closed and I would be no longer be at risk of them reopening.  In that sense, mission accomplished.  However I am far from "healed" in the sense that I am back to normal.

I still have numbness running from my ear down to my collar bone, but I feel this has improve incrementally over the last week or so.  It started around the 22nd of October when, for a couple days, I felt lightening bolts travel through my neck a few times.  Lightening bolts is probably too powerful a word.  They were more like small electrical jolts.  None-the-less that seemed to be the beginning of increased feeling through this area.  The mixed areas of numbness and feeling have made shaving and moving my neck feel very strange.  This is just a mere annoyance I believe will go away with time.

The more disconcerting thing is going on in my mouth.  Although my voice has returned for the most part I can tell my voice has changed.  If I talk loud enough it sounds, at least to me, like I have a speech impediment.  It sounds slurred or like when a deaf person speaks though not as pronounced.

Drinking is also another problem.  I can no longer take a continuous drink.  I have to take small sips and carefully swallow and always in a fully upright position otherwise it goes straight up my sinuses.  Food is not as much of a problem but occasionally there's an area that seems to capture food and I can feel it in the back of my mouth just sitting there stuck.  Typically a drink is sufficient to free it.

Another thing that I've noticed that's changed is my smile.  It looks mechanical and forced, which I guess it kinda is since part of my jaw is still numb so at least I have hope that it will return back to normal when the numbness subsides.

Finally, whenever I sneeze, cough or yawn it feels like the back of my throat is tearing open again.  I try to suppress these actions to reduce the pain, but as much as I try they always hurt.

These all may seem like little things; maybe they are.  I think these annoyances would have been easier to accept if they had found the cancer in my tonsil and successfully removed it.  Then at least I would have had a net gain.  However, since they didn't find the cancer there I now have to face the fact that I may lose more of who I am, suffer more discomfort and lose more functionality in order to find the cancer that may or may not be there anymore.  How much more of my body will have to be carved up to be cured?

I saw my radiation oncologist a couple weeks back.  He said he was reluctant to proceed with any radiation therapy unless ordered by my ENT.  This struck me as kind of odd since he seemed more concerned about stepping on my ENT's toes rather than doing what was in my best interest.

Then I saw my oncologist this week and this concerned him as well.  He thought each doctor should form their own opinion as to which is the best course of treatment with the best interest of the patient at the forefront without regards as to whether will offend the other doctors.  Up until this point they were all in agreement, but now that the primary site wasn't where it was suspected there's some disagreement as to how to proceed.

They all still agree to do the MRI.  If the MRI shows something, fine, then we'll have a definite direction.  However both my ENT and oncologist are skeptical the MRI will find anything.

If it doesn't, my ENT wants to play the wait and monitor game where I'll go in for scans at regular intervals to see if it turns up anywhere.  My oncologist thinks that if the MRI is negative that I should go ahead with radiation to the whole region.  The only problem with that is that my radiation oncologist said that I could lose all function of my saliva glands.  As a result my mouth will be constantly dry and I'll have to carry water on me at all times to hydrate my mouth.  That does not sound fun.

It's amazing the little things we take for granted like being able to salivate but realize how important they are when they're on the table to be taken away.  Kind of like Sophie's Choice but with your body.

So, as far as this is concerned, I'm waiting on my MRI.  That is scheduled for November 13th.  I had it scheduled for tomorrow, but that's a whole other story I'll save for another post tentatively titled, "My life as a cash cow."