My first day in Scottsdale, AZ is full of hope.  After spending over 5 hours at the Mayo Clinic going from appointment to appointment, Rob, my mom and I left with tears of happiness!

Every person I encountered at the Mayo clinic could not express enough how great my doctor is.  He was described from multiple people as a pioneer to the procedure I will be having.

The doctor was able to put some of our negative emotions to ease.  We came to Scottsdale with so much fear.  The doctor was very nice, spent a lot of time with us, explained everything and answered many of our questions.  There were questions he was unable to answer as it depends on how the surgery goes, but we remain hopeful.

The procedure I will be having is called Transoral Laser Microsurgery (allows surgeons to remove tumors from the voice box with no external incisions) and selective lymph node removal.

The doctor explained this is my fourth surgery so there is no time to mess around. The cancer needs to be gone!  The surgery will take as long as it needs to (about 4 hours) and it is successful 9 out of 10 times.   He feels surgery is the best option for me and I will not need both surgery and radiation.   (Tears of happiness!!!)   I will NOT have the same voice after surgery…ever… but I will be alive.  He explained that I will speak softly and “breathy.”  (This is very scary as to what I am going to sound like.)  It will be difficult to hold long conversations because it will be very hard to get air, which can cause hyper ventilating.  I will not be able to yell at my kids…or my husband!  (Lucky them!) In the beginning, I will have to really concentrate with eating and drinking, but I WILL be able to swallow and breathe normally.  I will be going to speech therapy (duration/frequency is unknown).  I will most likely have webbing on my vocal cords, which will affect my speech.  In addition, due to the inflammation that will occur on the vocal cord, a granuloma will most likely form.  The granuloma will need to be surgically removed, which will require me to travel back to Scottsdale.  (Granuloma – a mass of granulation tissue, typically produced in response to infection, inflammation, or the presence of a foreign substance.)

As for the selective lymph node removal, there will be a large scar on my neck. (Oh well!)  The doctor will test each lymph node while in surgery to make sure the cancer is completely removed.  I will be able to lift my babies much sooner than we anticipated!

This is a lot of information and there are still so many questions that remain, however I feel I am in the BEST hands.

Prayers are being answered.