Taking a Pause for Surgery

I’ll be scarce in this space for an indeterminate number of days, starting tomorrow.

Round four of my surgical experiences is happening at UC La Jolla. The official estimate is that I’ll be in the hospital for 6 days.

Then I’ll be going into “recovery,” which is not the same as being released from the hospital. Coming home just means the docs think there’s a better than even chance you won’t die. Hospitals can be icky places.

Last December, I went to UC La Jolla for surgical removal of an encore bout of throat cancer. They got the bad stuff out and sent me home in just a few days. 

For lack of a better description, the duct tape keeping things together after removing the cancer didn’t hold, and I was readmitted to UC Hillcrest for what turned out to be major reconstructive surgery. A few weeks later, I came home and waited for things to heal up enough to endure six weeks of twice daily radiation.

I’ve ended up not being able to vocalize, getting fed formula through a tube into my stomach,  unable to look down/left because of a muscle flap blocking breathing, along with a small but persistent leak between my food and breathing tubes. Fun stuff.

I’ve had three “procedures” since and none of them fixed the problems.  

So another surgeon --they are all amazing people-- is going to redo the reconstruction on September 9th. It’s a serious deal; serious enough so I’ve had the “consequences” talk twice now.

If everything works out, I may not be singing opera (which is good because I’m tone-deaf), but over the course of a few months I might get back to the old “new normal.” There are a lot of variables in what might occur, but it’d be worth it if I end up being able to eat real food and/or tell my wife I love her using some kind of voice.

The time I spend writing has kept me from the pits of depression, and I’ll be back at it as soon as I can.  We’ve got redistricting and elections coming next year, along with the opportunity to elect some more good people to office, so I look forward to digging through all the muck.

Thank you for being a reader.

PS -- Because this blog is set up so that a human being gets involved with comments, I'm turning them off for a few days. You can still share your wit and wisdom at Twitter and Facebook. I'll read them eventually.

 You can email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com - I'll get back if needed asap.