I am on Day 5 of my recovery. I won’t spend a lot of time in this blog today because the pain medications make me a little loopy still. Still, I figured I would share a few details with the masses. (pun intended because a cancerous tumor is called a “mass”)
I am sore mostly from the tonsillectomy. The neck dissection, while uncomfortable, is causing considerably less pain.
I just realized that I am way too out of it to be coherent here. So I’ll just share some pictures and continue this when I can think more clearly:
Above is my scar. I’s about 10 inches long and is sexy as hell. The patch is where the drainage tube was that evacuated excess fluid from my neck. It’s gone now, obviously.
Above is the mass removed from my neck. The actual cancer is the knob in the top left. The rest is the lymph structures attached that were removed in case microscopic cancer cells got into the tissue. Way top left (darker mass) is the neck muscle that had to be removed – really a small section.
Above is my neck splayed open after the mass had been removed. You can clearly see my jugular artery and my facial nerves (by the blue paper).
Anyway – I am starting to feel better, but the pain is pretty acute still. Fortunately I should regain nearly full use of my left arm andneck as very little musclewas removed. I am confident that thi is the first step on my road of recovery.
wow….
These are some graphic pictures, man. Recover fast.
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