It’s been one crazy road since I went into surgery. After speaking to the doctor on 1/6, it was mentioned that the operating room was reserved for 4 hours. The morning of surgery the OR was reserved for 4.5 hours. Of course he told us that it would take as long as it needed to but 7 hours and 15 minutes was not the expectation.  I was also warned that I may need a feeding tube, but chances of that happening were very slim. Of course I woke up with one. 

I’m sure you can imagine the fear Rob and my mom had. They explained to me that the waiting room was full. At the 4 hour mark their anxiety was very high. Then 4.5 hours hit and still no update. Rob and my mom just watched as  all these other doctors were coming to speak to family members in the waiting room. No one was coming to them. No updates were given. The time was nearly at a stand still. After over 7 hours they were called to go to a private room. They explained their hearts dropped. All the other doctors talked to the families in the waiting room, but they were called into a separate room.  As you can imagine their hearts sunk even more.  Rob said he blacked out and he doesn’t even remember the walk to the room. It was in the room the doctor explained how he felt complete success in the surgery. He feels he was able to remove ALL of the cancer. My mom told me she embarrassed me because she hugged the doctor so tight! I do NOT care, I would of too!! 

When I meet with the doctor prior to surgery I was full of hope that he was going to remove all margins and then potentially in the future I would be able to have other surgeries in which they could fill in part of my larynx to assist with my voice quality. I was really excited about that. To find out after surgery that I had a complete partial voice box removal in addition to all the cartilage removed has really made me upset. First, it’s scary that the cartilage was removed because the cancer wasn’t supposed to be there. The doctor explained that the cancer was adhering to the cartilage so he didn’t want to chance leaving it there and having it return.  Now, since the cartilage is removed there isn’t any room for fillers to be placed on the larynx to assist with my voice quality. Of course I’m estatic the cancer is gone, it’s just still a lot to digest after this major surgery.  In addition to the particle voice box removal, I also had a neck dissection in which 30 lymph nodes were removed from the left side of my neck. 

  
Needless to say, the past two days spent in the hospital have been very draining physically and emotionally for myself and all of my loved ones. I have been in a trance between the pain meds and just everything going. I know I’m at the beginning of this journey, but I know in the grand scheme of things I’ll be ok. It’s going to be a new way of life but I’m going to live and be with my babies!