Surgery Update and Thank you
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| Fri, 11-18-2005 - 11:07pm |
Hello all! Thank you all for your well wishes during my surgery this week. I appreciate all your pt&p.
For those that weren't aware, I had a very large mass on the right side of my neck which needed to be removed. What was suppose to be a 2 hour procedure ran almost 4 hours. It turns out the cyst (thankfully benign) had grown around and kind of through pretty much everything in my neck - jugular, caratoid, major nerves, tendons, etc. I was cut from the front of my neck along the right side to almost the back (a bit behind & below my ear). The 12th nerve was the most extensively tangled in the cyst, so I am having some speech and eating issues - that particular nerve controls the right side of your tongue. I have a hard time enunciating a lot of words, chewing and swallowing is difficult also. They used about 15 staples to close up the wound instead of the stitches they originally intended. I look like Frankenstein...almost literally. Because the surgery became so intensive, they did end up keeping me in the hospital an extra day to observe and keep the drain in my neck (very icky). Fortunately, the drain came out tonight and I got to come home. It feels SO good to be home. The staples come out on Tuesday and hopefully I will be back to work a week from Monday. Unfortunately, they can't say when/if my speech will be back to normal. It WILL improve as the swelling goes down, but that is all they can say right now.
Overall, I am feeling pretty good - painkillers could have something to do with it . I'm home and overall very healthy.
Thank you all again for your thoughts and prayers. I hope all of you are doing well!
Tracey

Tracey,
I'm VERY happy to hear it was benign, if a total booger to get out!
((((tracey)))) i'm very glad to hear that the cyst was benign. that's always good news. i'm sorry for the complications, but will continue to send p & pt your way that all of the residual effects heal fully. glad you got the good painkillers.
as marci said, take your time going back to work. rest and relaxation can be the best medicine.
hugs,
traci