My Last Surgery

On Tuesday, Dec 23rd, I checked in to the Cottage Hospital at 5 am for the final phase of my treatment of tonsil cancer - a Modified Neck Dissection Surgery to remove the lymph glands on the right side of my neck. This is done to remove any chance of a microscopic bit of the cancer making its way to somewhere else in my body.

I would have normally done this about 7 or 8 weeks after my last radiation treatment, but my blood levels were so low that we had to wait until they returned to better levels before we could schedule the surgery.

So they made a neat cut from the bottom of my ear all the way to my adam's apple with two tubes to drain the fluids below that. A really impressive scar with the metal staples holding it together, kind of like Frankenstein!

About three weeks ago, my throat finally sealed up and I was able to eat much better, so I had my PEG (stomach) tube pulled. The tube had caused quite a bit of granulation of the skin around the opening, and it was causing me a lot of pain. When Dr Aguirre took it out, he also looked at the villi in my small intestine, and said that it was looking like it was improving. It took me a few days to recover from the anesthesia, and by the weekend, I was feeling pretty close to 100% again!

So what do we do? Throw me back into the hospital for a nice little surgery! I am not sure I have ever experienced more pain than when I was waking up from this one, it was really bad, and I was just screaming! Three days later, I am still here in the hospital hoping to be released today or tomorrow, as I am feeling much better. We still have not pulled the drainage tubes out, and I'm not looking to that!

I am, however, looking forward to returning home and starting the new year out with a clean slate with nothing more (medically) to do. Watch out, I'm on my way back!!!