"Holy shit where to start with this one.....it's unlikely to be a coherent linear account of what happened; more like a random collection of facts and feelings as they come to me.
Been out a couple of days now and my overriding memory of the five days I spent on Otter ward is of unrelenting boredom. I had music/video/books but rarely the inclination to use them, and when I did my concentration span was about a minute, so I went back to staring into space. Gets to the point that you actually want the phlebotomist to come and stick a needle in your arm just for the sake of two minutes of human contact."
Skip a couple of weeks to today and much (and also nothing) has happened.
Firstly to continue the bare facts of the hospital stay. When they got me on the table and opened up my neck they found more tumour than they'd been expecting, specifically on my right medial piriform fossa (bet you didn't even know you had one of those, I didn't), so the surgery went from being a selective or partial neck dissection to a radical one. That meant my right internal jugular vein was "sacrificed" amongst other stuff....was about five hours in theatre and woke up with thirty-six staples in two wounds in my neck and I was attached to two drainage jars (not to mention I was catheterised). Morphine got me through OK though!
Woke up the next morning to be offered breakfast and opted for a piece of toast....forgetting that during the surgery they'd taken out four lower back teeth....so I took a bite and there was nothing but gum at the bottom of my mouth. Eating became an issue for a while, still is a bit, swelling made it difficult to open my mouth much and the shortage of teeth meant I had to retrain my brain on how to chew; I'm getting there now but it's not been easy. Upside is I've lost a stone and can fit into my 32 inch waist jeans again!!
Ongoing difficult things; right shoulder is constantly painful and weak, right side of my head along with ear is numb....like when you get an injection at the dentist type of numb. I get constant "phantom" itches that I try to sctratch but there's no feeling there. Starting physio on Friday for the shoulder so hopefully that'll get better and I'll get some strength back. Both problems could possibly be permanent to some extent though, if they're not back in about eighteen months they never will be.
Going to post this bit now, I'll try to follow up soon.
But I should just say that the diagnosis has been changed on the basis of what they now know. It's, to give it it's full name, metastatic squamus cell carcinoma of the right medial piriform fossa. Neck cancer is less of a mouthful though and is close enough.
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