My surgery is on Monday the 29th of this month at 12:30pm. It will be performed at Winter Park Memorial Hospital in Winter Park, Florida. The surgery is expected to last between 2.5 – 4 hours. My surgeon is doing the following:
1. Biopsy my voice box
2. Biopsy my tongue
3. Biopsy the back of my throat
4. Remove my tonsils
5. Dissect my neck and remove the cancerous lymph nodes.
I can expect some rehabilitation for my left shoulder after the surgery as a critical arm nerve will have to be moved to get to the cancer. I can also expect a lot of pain and discomfort from the tonsillectomy. Adults fare very poorly with tonsillectomy. The neck will be sore but fairly manageable from a pain perspective. To minimize scarring, it will be stitched on the inside and the outside will be sutured with glue (although I WILL have a sexy cool scar).
I can expect to be in the hospital for 2-4 days, depending on how annoying I am to the nursing staff. Thanks everyone for your supportive and kind words and offers of help. I definitely appreciate it and will continue to update this small list of people on my status; I figure it’s always better to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth than from someone else.
Be nice to the nurses! 🙂