Boredom

Can I just say something about the boredom? I know, I know. You’re never supposed to admit it when you’re bored. My Dad used to say, “You’re bored? Good. Clean something.” It’s true. There is no reason to ever be bored. That being said, I’m bored as HELL. I’m sorry! I’m at a point in my life where the things that I do now don’t matter. They’ll matter later, but not yet. Let me explain.

I’ve experienced this feeling before. It’s a feeling of total pointlessness. Is that a word? Anyway, I feel like a parasite right now. I’m not working. Thankfully I’m receiving a small amount of money per month from the cruise line in a Maritime version of workers comp, but it’s not enough to do anything accept for buy groceries... kinda. I’m vegan and generally eat everything organic so my groceries are more expensive than average. That’s kind of a good thing at the moment because it means I buy less (and eat less) than usual which helps compensate for how much I’m sitting around. People often say “Oh my God... you’ve been out of work since May??? What have you been doing?” The answer isn’t very interesting, but I’ll tell you anyway.

To start off, let me give you a timeline. My last contract on a ship ended in May. I was offered another contract that was to start up a couple days later which fit my plans perfectly. I’d saved up a lot of money, but not as much as I needed for a trip that I planned. I was going to go to Europe and visit my friends in all of their different countries. Holland is a place I was generally focused on after having met so many people that reside there and I wanted one more quick contract to squeeze in so that I could go during the summer. It was hard, but I had to decline. Something was wrong. I knew that I had to see a doctor. It took a month before I could get in to see a specialist in Idaho and another month after that to see the vocal therapist. I had been told that I had developed vocal nodes and that it would take about 2 months of vocal therapy twice a week to fix it. Two months?? Oh no! That was the worst news that I could imagine. I had the dreaded nodes. My plans for Europe were ruined but my voice was more important. At my two month appointment, my therapist and doctor were both confident that my nodes were gone... until he scoped me and determined they hadn’t even shrunk. What??? Oh my gosh. How long was this going to take? I’d looked into working as a librarian on a ship in the mean time, but I was told that until the doctor gave me the all clear, I wasn’t allowed to work at all. A month later, they were again, sure that I was better. It was hard to tell if my voice was tired because something was still wrong, or merely because I went from singing 4 hours a day, to not singing at all. Again, no progress. This happened twice more during which time my vocal therapist assumed I wasn’t doing my therapy and where my doctor determined that I may never get better so I “May as well go back to work and see how it goes”. WHAT? I sing for a living. I can’t go back to work yet. I reminded him of this and he suggested that I still go and try to see doctors when I’m in port. I asked if he could just refer me to another specialist now. In November I was finally sent to Seattle where I was informed that I’d been misdiagnosed and I had to have surgery to remove a cyst. All of my savings were gone by now due to fact that I thought I was going to be out of work for 2 months tops. My surgery was scheduled for January which was the soonest they could see me, and now here I am a couple weeks later. 

Sorry for that long, elaborated timeline haha. I felt that it was important to express that the doctors kept telling me “next month you can go back to work” because this is the main reason I didn’t search for a side job at home. Also I might have lost my workers comp which was paying for my surgery. I couldn’t talk either which I suppose is kind of inconvenient. So what’s a girl to do when she’s trapped in Idaho with no job, no money, no voice, and messed up joints? Yeah my joints are messed up to. Can’t catch a break, can I? Well... during the summer and fall I was able to be a bit more productive. I had more money because I hadn’t used up my savings yet, and I had a car to drive because my Dad was driving his sports car and hadn’t put it away for the winter yet. I donated my time at a local soup kitchen and participated in a volunteer group of students from the college, helping with Special Olympics. I started taking piano and guitar lessons every week to attempt to improve my music theory. Another thing I was focusing on was my other health problems, seeing an acupuncturist once a week, and later a chiropractor in an attempt to tackle the health issues that I was too busy to address at sea. I was reading my Spanish Harry Potter books, painting, and learning how to use Logic Pro (music software).  For the most part I felt like I was keeping busy and productive, but knew that it was only temporary and I’d be back to work soon. 

By the time winter hit, things went downhill. Before my Seattle appointment, I told myself there’s no way I’d stay in Idaho for the winter. Me, my sinuses, and my joints, HATE being cold. I would no longer have a car. I had just run out of my savings and was having to live off of the small amount of workers comp money, which just wasn’t enough. I had to quit my piano and guitar lessons, and stop seeing my doctors. Since I didn’t have a car, I could no longer commit myself to my volunteer work. I had to get out of here. My thought was simple. I had two options. A: the Seattle doctor would say I’m better (because... again, that’s what my VT and Idaho doctor thought) or B: he’d say to keep doing my therapy. My Idaho doctor had told me those were my only two options and there was really no point going to Seattle, but he still sent me. My plan, therefore, was that if he said I’m better, I’d get some vocal coaching for a month to rebuild my vocal muscles then get back out to sea. If he said I wasn’t better yet, I’d abandon my workers comp, and get onto a ship as a Youth Staff or Librarian and continue to do my therapy on my own. Either way I was set to leave. No longer would I have to attempt to delude myself into thinking I was being a productive citizen. Then I got the news that I wasn’t prepared for. I had to have surgery. I had to stay. 

This was the worst point for me. Aside from being terrified of the potential ramifications of the surgery, this was crushing news. I was trapped. Literally. Because of my joint issues I couldn’t even leave the house on a bike if I wanted to. There’s no public transportation in my town (unless I walked forever to find a shuttle stop which I can’t do...) and most of my friends were either not in Idaho, or very busy with their lives and I couldn’t expect them to cart me around. At this point, it turned out to be a good thing that I couldn’t afford to do my usual activities. I wouldn’t be able to get there even if I could afford it. As an adult woman, my life was as shameful as I could imagine it to be. I went from living on ships making money and being independent, to living with my parents and asking them for rides. I was more independent in High School. Making new friends wasn’t something I was really interested in. What was I going to do. Ask them to come chill at my Mom’s house? Ew. Luckily I had a few good friends in town who could keep me company sometimes and didn’t care where I lived or that my life was boring. That helped a lot. With effort I may have been able to continue to do some of my volunteering but I lost interest. I stopped practicing guitar and piano. I didn’t have motivation to practice my Spanish. Plus, I was sick and I’d been sick since Thanksgiving with a cold and cough that wouldn’t go away. Finally, I was just at the point where I felt sorry for myself. My family and I  weren’t really getting along and the fact that I couldn’t just leave and get a moment to myself made me crazy. 

I don’t like to ask my parents for anything. I’m already a leach that lives in their house and runs up the heating and electricity bills. When Christmas was approaching, however, I needed some tests done by the doctor that insurance didn’t cover and I couldn’t afford. I asked my mother if she could cover the cost of the tests for Christmas and she refused because it wasn’t a nice present. (I still haven’t had the tests...). She told me to think of something else, and so I asked for the thing that I wanted the most. A ticket out of here. I’d already looked at tickets to LA and found some that were cheap and she agreed that I could go. Yes! A long needed vacation. Although I have family in California, they’re busy with their lives and I knew if I went to visit them I’d just be stuck at their house, so I went to see my friend Whitney. It was so nice to have a social life for a week! She kept me busy and we had a lot of fun. During that trip I almost got better from my cold, but as usual, it came back full force. This meant that when I got back to Idaho, I still couldn’t go out drinking and dancing with my friends. Salt in the wound. 

The relaxation from my trip only lasted a few days and then I went back to being a nervous wreck. My days consisted of Facebook (not proud.), reading, painting, crocheting random hats and headbands for people, and trying to suppress my coughing so as not to do further damage to my throat. Another thing that I was still doing was working with Logic Pro. I was taking songs that I’ve written but haven’t had a chance to record yet, and doing all of the music for it. That way, when I can sing again, it’ll be like singing karaoke to tracks that are all finished. My motivation with that was here and there because sometimes my inability to sing would overwhelm me with frustration and the creative juices would just stop. 

The turn around happened when I had my surgery. I’ve explained already that I was relieved when my surgery went well. Understatement of the century. I hadn’t realized how much better my mind would feel after the surgery. Now, I’m in the same dilemma as before. I sit around a lot, get trapped at home all the time, freeze my ass off, feel sometimes like there’s no point trying to get anything done, but somehow it’s not as bad. Those things combined with the fear of a botched surgery was much more overwhelming then what I face now. I’m frustrated at how long my doctor said it’ll be to get well again, but at least this time I’m on the mend and I’ll be able to see progress. Now I can start to plan for my future with more confidence and there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel. Like I said. I’ve been here before. During that time people thought I was wasting my time practicing guitar and learning songs, but it payed off in the future with a solo act on cruise ships that took me around the world. Hopefully I’ll find that the mundane seemingly pointless things I’ve been doing for the past 9 months will enrich my life in ways that I never could have predicted. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. 

Cracking

I don’t know why I called this one Cracking. I suppose it’s referring to the way I sound right now. I don’t want to forget that this blog is also meant to be informative as well as entertaining :). So far I haven’t really gotten into the physical effects of the surgery yet. If you are reading this because you are about to face the same thing, or just because you’re curious, I hope you find it interesting either way.

Let me back track a moment. I’d like to get into what I felt like directly after the surgery and all the way up until today when I had my first post-op appointment. I mentioned already, the way I felt upon awakening from surgery... the coughing and feeling guilty for coughing etc. Now I’m going to explain how it was from that day on. As I mentioned before, my tongue was numb after the surgery. Eating was a big pain because it was annoying, but it actually was easier than expected. I wasn’t sure how difficult eating would be after throat surgery, but the operation was in my wind pipe, so it’s not like having tonsils removed (Really painful by the way, if you haven’t tried that. That surgery hurt WAY more!), the pain is down the other tube... and there was minimal pain. I ate apple sauce, soup, and a shake the first day, and was pretty much back to normal the next. I would say two things bothered me a lot more than my throat. My jaw hurt like a bitch. I wanted to put bitch in caps lock, but I’m trying to keep it a bit classy, hahaha. The point is, they cranked the crap out of my jaw to hold my mouth open. I’m glad of course that they were able to see well and do a good job on the surgery, but my poor jaw did NOT appreciate it. The other thing that was bothering me was my numb tongue. I don’t mean it was numb so I couldn’t feel it. I mean, it was numb so I could only kind of feel it and it hurt all the way down my throat. Luckily during the time that it was the most painful, I had drugs :) After a couple days I switched to tylenol and hardly needed it. 

After a week my tongue was still numb. In fact, it’s been a week and a half and it’s still a bit numb today. It was annoying to me that whistling was hard with my numb tongue, because I already can’t sing or hum. No whistling either?? It’s in my nature to always be singing or humming a tune so it made me crazy that I could’t even just whistle. I feel sorry for those of you who don’t know how to whistle! Hahaha I didn’t realize how frustrating it can be. That was also one of the only ways that I could communicate with my sister’s dog, Gunner. Trying to call him into the house without being able to use my voice or whistle was pretty much impossible. Damn dog :). From the day of surgery on, I had to do a very soft hum out of my nose and a sniff in for about 30 seconds every hour, just to get things moving.

So anyway, a week after surgery I was able to speak for ten minutes, and then add ten minutes a day from that point on. The first day that I was allowed to talk, I was kinda terrified... The warm fuzzy feeling that I had after hearing that the surgery went well, was replaced with the fear that once I started speaking, they might change their mind. What if they thought it went well, and then when I try to talk, something’s wrong? I spoke very quietly that day. It sounded like the voice of a little kid and was very weak and shaky. For the first time in my life since I can remember, I didn’t have control of my voice. I had it down to such an art that I was able to sing around my cyst. I could feel where the unnatural break was in my voice, and use another way to hit the notes smoothly. Of course this made my voice more tired, but at least I had control. It was finally obvious to me as I spoke for the first time, why my doctor told me it would be about 6 months before I could work confidently as a singer again. It was pretty scary and I preferred not speaking, to speaking with that flawed voice. Luckily, I understand how important it is to look at things the way they are and not the way they used to be, and I think that will help me recover. (Fingers crossed).

The second day that I was allowed to speak, I was given 20 minutes. I said a few quiet sentences here and there, but was hesitant about it. Speaking to someone within and arms distance away was alright, and I was told to speak quietly, but not in a whisper. I used my voice as little as possible and hated using it. On the day that I was allowed 30 minutes of vocal use, it was also the day of my post-op appointment. So... this morning. I was in a bad mood because I was nervous. What would my doctor say? With my history of health problems, I felt that it was probable that I would get bad news. Power of positive thinking! Yeah yeah. I know. Even though I think positively, I can’t help it when that feeling creeps up on me of the possibility of things going wrong. 

The morning was a little dramatic anyway because here in Seattle, nobody is prepared for snow and we happen to be in the middle of a winter storm. On our way to the clinic we called to make sure the office was still open (and by we I mean my mother/interpreter called). They were open and I got in shockingly quick for a place where I’m used to spending 3-4 hours. I was the only one of their patients to show up that was scheduled that morning. They told me that it was alright to speak with them and that I could just put it towards the 30 minutes that I’m allotted. It was embarrassing to me, speaking with my torn up voice. Over the last few years I’ve really come to learn something about myself. I HATE not being in control! I don’t mean to say I’m a control freak... that usually involves other people. What I mean is that I don’t like getting wasted, I refused to be hypnotized, and I’m a perfectionist when it comes to singing, just to name a few. This was problematic at the office today because of what I was required to do. 

They sprayed stuff in my nose and put a strobe camera down it all the way to my vocal chords. Not super fun, in case you were thinking of trying it. This has been done to me what feels like a million times since I signed off my ship in May, but I still don’t like it. (Just a little side note... the fact that the camera had a strobe light on it is actually very important. The reason that I was misdiagnosed in the first place was because my Idaho doctor didn’t have this high quality equipment and used a normal scope. He could see that there was something wrong but didn’t get a sharp detailed image of what it was. Then he made a wrong guess.The strobe makes the vibrations of the vocal chords appear to slow down so that it’s much easier to capture a crisp image. If you’re worried about your throat and plan to see a specialist, I recommend that you make sure they use this feature.) Anyway, so the image from the camera was projected onto a screen and there were a handful of doctors in the room giving me instructions and taking charge of different things. The vocal pathologist did a lot of “repeat after me” tunes. This was the hardest thing for me to deal with because I’m used to being able to match something without thinking about it. Now, there were some things I couldn’t do at all. There was one note that the doctor asked me to hit strongly and I couldn’t even hit it softly. The break in my voice was so large that it sounded like a train horn instead of a sweet note. Luckily I was told that all of that was normal. They said that I needed to speak with confidence instead of using the meek voice that I had the past two days. I totally feel sorry for boys going through puberty now. How can you speak confidently when you know it’s inevitable for your voice to crack?? Well, I suppose the answer in this situation is to remind myself that I just had surgery. Of course it’s not going to sound right for a while. I think it’s a pretty good excuse ;)

When asking why it sounds the way it does now, my doctor said that the skin on the surface of my vocal chord has to get back to vibrating properly. They told me the surface is a bit stiff right now, but it’s normal for this point in recovery and that I’m actually ahead of the game. It’s hard to believe, but they have no reason to lie. He also mentioned something like I have to build up a little tissue again where he removed the cyst, but I’m not sure I heard correctly. The point is, like any sports injury, if I want it to heal right I have to be a super compliant patient and give it time. Dr.Merati said that the most important thing now is not to get overly confident. He said he can’t tell me how many times his patients have a great first post-op appointment, then get over confident and overdue it. I promised to be a perfect patient! Normally the next appointment would be scheduled for 2 weeks later, but since I have to travel, he wanted me to come in 3 weeks instead... combining my 2 week and 4 week appointments. He had to assure me that it was alright to do that because of course I don’t want my commute to hinder my recovery. After being convinced that it was safe to do so, they left me with a few parting tasks. When I return home, they want me to start up with the vocal therapy again. This time I’m set up for success! I can’t tell you how frustrating 6 months of vocal therapy was when I was misdiagnosed. It just felt like one failure after another. This time I plan on recovering! I no longer have to hum every hour now that I’m speaking a little, but they want me to do quiet scales (that are bound to sound like shit for now... pardon my French...) and some sliding notes here and there. So far, everything is looking to be on track. One more scary doctor’s appointment to check off my list. Now, back to Coeur d’Alene, and onto my recovery!  

One Week

So it’s been a week since I had my vocal chords worked on. I honestly haven’t done much of anything interesting while recovering, but I do have a few stories for you. 

People do a lot of interesting things when you can’t speak to them. Mostly I think it’s really cute :). The first thing that amused me was a button that I was given after my surgery. It says “I am on vocal rest. Therefore, I cannot speak. Thank you.” The only problem is that in order to read the button, a person would have to practically touch their nose to my boob. They had to make the writing small so that they could fit the hospital logo and information on it as well. I actually wore it around a bit too :). People also think that I’m deaf. I don’t condone pretending to be deaf when you’re not, however I’m not proud to say that I have been guilty of going along with it a couple times. I can’t be bothered to try to explain things to people. I’ve become too lazy to get out my whiteboard and dry erase marker and find myself just letting things go. When I had questions at a grocery store the other day, one sweet worker kindly mimed out everything for me. She was so nice that I just went along with it! What else could I do? 

 

So, as I mentioned, I’m getting too lazy to take out the whiteboard. Because of this, I’m learning a lot! For instance, I found that I correct people all the time. At least, my mother anyway. Probably not a good quality, but it’s one I didn’t even notice I had! I finally realized it when my mother said with confidence “What’s that over there? Oh. Nope. That’s just a Kentucky Colonel.” What she was referring to was KFC. Kentucky Fried Chicken. It really bugs me when she makes things up like that and just goes with it! Normally if I could speak, without thinking I’d say, “KFC”. Easy right? But now, it required me digging through my purse to find a marker, then getting out the white board and writing it. She was driving so by the time she could read the note, A: she’d have no idea what I was talking about which would frustrate me more, and B: she wouldn’t care. I realized that it’s not worth it to correct her. Then it occurred to me... is it ever worth it? If I know that people won’t listen to me anyway, why waste my breath? Why let it annoy me? Along the same line, I’ve just stopped answering what I dub to be stupid questions. Normally I go out of my way to explain things to people if they’re confused, but I really can’t be bothered. I’m finding that by not responding, it’s only a matter of seconds before people realize how pointless their questions are and answer them themselves haha. Okay, ok. No such thing as a stupid question. BUT there is such a thing as a redundant or pointless question ;). As it is... I’m lucky if anyone tries to speak to me right now at all!

I love socializing. I get so bored being cooped up, and being in Seattle for medical purposes also presented me with something else. Friends! Yes, I’m from North Idaho and I have friends there, but the people that are here in Seattle are friends that I know from ships. The head office for the cruise line that I worked for is here so many of my ship friends are in and out. Most of my friends recognized how boring I could be after surgery and therefore rushed to see me in the few days leading up to it when I was allowed to speak. One of my friends I hadn’t seen in a year, and he didn’t get ahold of me until after my surgery. I was frustrated that I didn’t feel well enough to do normal young people things like go to a club or have a drink or... well, talk. After the weekend however, I was feeling well enough for dinner. If it hadn’t occurred to you by now... catching up with a friend you haven’t seen in a year when you can’t speak, doesn’t work very well! I was driving so during the car ride I wasn’t able to whip out the ole white board but it was better once we were at dinner. At one point, I had to remind him that he could talk. It was nice to see him and we had a good (silent) laugh, but the consensus was that it’s weird. He didn’t want to be the only one talking, so he just didn’t! Haha. This is very interesting to me because anyone who knows me is used to, as one friend put it, “rapid Shelly talk”. It’s funny how different people seem when I’m not egging them on with questions or sharing stories. I find it ironic that my biggest flaw (or... endearing quality as I’d like to think of it haha) is speaking too much and here I am without a voice. I’m all ears, but nobody is talking! 

Men

So before my surgery, I had a week of vocal rest to see if I could get the cyst size to go down while taking steroids. Now that I’ve had my surgery, I’m of course back on vocal rest, but I just thought I’d share some stories about what I’ve already experienced. 

Here are a few examples of how men treat me when I go out without a voice (Attention men: I’m in bars in North Idaho here. I don’t believe you’re all like this.): 

I’ve had many types of responses when men approach me in bars. Typically when someone is trying to engage me in conversation, I point to my throat and give a kind of ‘sorry... I can’t talk!’ expression. One guy got really angry with me, assuming I was just using a crap excuse to be non confrontational, and said “Yeah! Okay! Fine. I get it.” And stomped away pouting as I just stood there shrugging. More often than not, the typical response was one of irrational excitement. In one particular instance I sat at a table playing a sort of charades game with one such man which actually started out fun. Then he followed me around all night talking about how mysterious I was and how much he loved that I couldn’t talk. Now... men. If you are reading this, I’m just gonna throw it out there. I know you’ll say anything to get in a woman’s pants, but telling her that you love that she can’t talk is less of a compliment and more of a sexist 1892 comment. Just sayin. Ever since that incident I’ve had many more like it. On New Years Eve I carried around a card with me so that when drunk men didn’t understand that I couldn’t talk, I’d show them the card that read: “I’m not ignoring you. I’m mute.” The answer to that every time... “I actually LOVE that!” 

I have a friend named Erin that I grew up with. We were next door neighbors since I was 5 and we know everything about each other. She’s usually the one who drags me out even thought I can’t drink or talk, so she therefore becomes my interpreter. On many occasions she’ll sit next to me as a guy asks me questions about myself, and she answers all of them for me! It’s pretty hilarious and sometimes Erin comes up with better answers than I would. On New Years Eve this year, my interpreter got extremely drunk and this was the result:

Me, being mute and Sober decides to sit and rest my feet. Erin who is wasted (and my interpreter) comes over to give me a friendly lap dance. A cute guy approaches:

Cute guy: Hey! My friend and I would like to buy you ladies a drink!

Erin: (very drunk) Nope! Sorry! We're both staying sober tonight. We don't drink!

Cute guy: Oh!

Erin: We're strippers!

Me: (trying unsuccessfully to get the guys attention and show that Erin's joking)

Cute guy: (surprised) Oh! Well... tell me a little about that. I don't usually go to strip clubs.

Me: (unsuccessfully attempting to show that I think that's a good thing.)

Erin: Yep! PLUS I have a boyfriend so sorry. Guess you're going to have to go find a single girl and give her a big kiss!

Me: (Trying desperately to signal that I'M single!)

Cute guy: (confused)

Erin: Okay! Good bye now! (ushers him away)

I will say in Erin’s defense that she was right about him anyway. I danced with him later for about two seconds before he thought it was appropriate to lift up my skirt and I had to slap him. I guess he believed her about us being strippers and thought I'd be used to it... 

Anyway, so that’s my experience with men in my world of silence so far. I’m sure there are going to be many more random stories to come. Wish me luck! :)

Without a Voice: The Surgery

Brief Background: 

So let me start by giving a little background. My name is Shelly and I sing for a living. What’s a singer’s worst nightmare? Ursula steeling our voice forever. Or... something like that. As a solo guitar/ vocalist on cruise ships, I was required to sing for 7 days a week, 4 hours a day. I laughed when I heard that they were actually expecting that much, but I wasn’t laughing long. If you aren’t a singer, maybe this isn’t clear. OR if you’re like my friend Jimmie and have the body of a robot that wakes up the same time every day without an alarm and doesn’t know the feeling of vocal fatigue after 8 million hours of singing... you may need some further explanation. That much singing is crazy. It’s just nuts. It basically required me to sing at about 40% of my ability level because I had to totally cut all kick ass powerful songs out and stick with gouge your eyes out soft songs. Shockingly people liked those songs too, but this only worked for a while. As soon as I got sick and had to sing that much without rest for my clearly banged up chords, things went wrong. I was able to go almost a year on this cruise line before I developed a vocal cyst caused by overuse. I was initially misdiagnosed with vocal nodules which wouldn’t resolve. I burt through all of my savings during the six months that I was at home and out of work trying to heal with vocal therapy, something that usually only goes away with surgery. Finally, I flew to Seattle and got a second opinion where they gave me the news. I had a growth that had to be removed surgically. Now... I’m giving you my story!

I feel it necessary to explain this for three reasons. The first being, I know many friends are curious about what I’m going through and would be interested in reading this. The second reason is that I thought anyone might like to know the random things that a person without a voice experiences on a daily basis. The third reason is the most important to me. When I was googling (Yes. Super pro. I know) my type of throat injury (or any singer related throat injury) I found a lot of information out there about people having to cancel tours for throat surgery etc, but what I didn’t find was anything about their recovery. In most cases, I never even knew if people DID recover! The articles would say “...blah blah blah expecting a full recovery...” but I never heard about wether or not they did! Considering the fact that singing is my whole life and career, it was very important for me to see real proof that people get better... not just take my surgeon’s word for it (cause let’s be real... surgeons want to perform surgery. That’s what they do.). So because I hadn’t heard any recovery stories, I thought I’d go step by step with mine by writing a blog that documents the trials and tribulations of a singer AFTER throat surgery. Let me begin by explaining the actual day of surgery.

The Surgery:

I had to get up at zero in the morning. Really, the only time I see that time of day it’s because I’m still awake. I’m a musician. And I’m on workers comp. I sleep in. Okay so anyway, I got there bright and early with my mother who was my required ride afterwards. Of course I’d already done pre-op paperwork at my 4 hour appointment earlier in the week (oy vey) so it was pretty low key the day of surgery. I met a million doctors who asked me redundant important questions and wrote initials with permanent marker on my neck. They made me wear a flimsy gown with nothing underneath. We’ve all seen these but yes... they make you wear it for a throat issue. I guess that’s in case something goes wrong and they need to harvest my organs or something... which is really comforting. Okay I’m being dramatic. Back to the facts.

I was totally fine until my mother started arguing with a nurse. I was at one of the best University Hospitals on the West coast... arguably the best for Otolaryngology (yes. That’s a real word.) but without warning my mother started asking one of the nurses questions that made me nervous without having been prepared. She asked the woman (whose name I unfortunately can’t remember... MILLIONS of doctors I tell you!) anyway she asked him who would be putting the breathing tube down my throat. Being a singer they use a smaller tube because there is the risk that they can knick your vocal chord on the way down and permanently screw it up. Not good. So these things are important. My Doctor’s name is Dr. Merati, and I trust him completely to do as good a job as possible. That includes trusting his opinion on who will be performing the various tasks that need to be done. My mother got so flustered because she didn’t want a student to do it. The woman assured her that everything was all planned out and my doctor and an attending physician would be there as well. They started getting angry with each other so when the Doctor left I asked my mother to stop asking questions in front of me that made me nervous (NOW I was worried). A very nice resident came in (I liked his bedside manner. So nice!) He got my IV started and my wires hooked up. My mom started arguing with him over the same topic until I actually yelled at her to sit down and stop making me nervous. Then I started crying (crying is not good for singers throats. Either is yelling.) Luckily my mom understood my stress and politely sat down. Doctors were handing me tissues and I tried to work around my IV and monitor wires to wipe my eyes. 

The resident held my hand and was very kind and got me to stop crying in no time. If he was the student, I felt like I was in good hands. He said the attending physician has done this a thousand times, and even though he’s new, he’s done it hundreds of times. I wish it never came up but at least he calmed me down. ATTENTION: Parents going to support their children for surgery... I recommend that you ask freaky questions AWAY from the already emotionally unstable patient. Maybe not something that seems obvious, but just a tip. She figured it out when the attending physician showed up after I stopped crying and said “I understand you have some questions for me?” I kind of looked at her blankly like ‘Oh great. Not again. I don’t want to deal with this!’ Of course she doesn’t speak Facial Expressions, so after a second the resident said “uh well I think her mother does...” And luckily they left the room to discuss it. On the other side of the curtain. Pointless, but it’s the thought that counts so I ignored them. Soon they wheeled me down what felt like a thousand hallways and over bumpy construction zones and finally got me into the surgery room.

Dr. Merati was waiting for me and told me some jokes about how he was up late for poker night and was shaky cause he was kinda hung over. That made me smile and he gave just a few more details of what to expect and then the Anesthesia people did their thing and I went into beautiful perfect sleep. That’s all I remember until I woke up about an hour later! 

The first thing I remember upon awakening was coughing. Then-- feeling guilty for coughing. (Not supposed to do that. Bad for the throat.) I guess in my defense... they’d just yanked a tube out of my wind pipe. I guess. Then I notice that I hadn’t quite figured out how to breath yet which resulted in a moment of minor panic. Okay I’m exaggerating again, but I was nervous. Luckily the sweet resident was by my side speaking to me (I hardly realized it cause I was loopy as hell...) and I held out my hand for him to hold where surprisingly he picked up on it an humored me by squeezing my hand while I tried to figure out how to breath and swallow. It’s not like it was hard to do, but the entire right side of my tongue was numb (and still is as I write this later in the day). Also I had a raging sore throat. Duh. They asked me how I was feeling so I pointed to my stomach and did a thumbs down. I had a stomach ache and knowing that people vomit after surgery, I didn’t want to risk it (also not good for the throat. What is?) so I tried to express right away that I was nauseous. They knew what I meant and when they asked if I was in any pain I pointed to my throat. They asked how much on a scale of 0 being none and 10 being the worst imaginable and I held up 5 fingers. This not talking thing is pretty easy! They gave me something for nausea  then wheeled me in to a post op room. The woman there was giving me pain meds which helped a lot. She said I’m the only one who remembers to go straight to vocal rest when still that drugged up. Yeah bitches, that’s right. I got this :) Then she started asking me complicated Insurance question that were NOT easy to explain without talking.  I was annoyed about the insurance questions because they already had the information. I remember rolling my eyes and thinking ‘Really? I’m like, still asleep and five seconds out of surgery. Don’t you want to ask somebody else about this?’ She did, and got it resolved. Idiot. She was nice though so I forgave her. She fed me baby ice cubes and then a baby sip of apple sauce to try to keep me from getting more nauseous. Then, on to the next room!

This ride wasn’t as fun. The construction zones made me kinda dizzy but by the time the wheeled me into the second post op room I was fine. They had a humidifier mask attached to me which I kind of love and want :) And then I just slept. Unless they made me try to sip water or have more apple sauce. I haven’t slept like that in a long time. I didn’t even realize how worried I’d been about my surgery until it was finished. Of course I was drugged up so I’m sure that helped, but my mind was at ease for a little while. I didn’t even know how it went, but it was done so no more use worrying. 

After changing precariously back into my clothes, my mother took me home and explained what the doctor said. He had told me initially that he worried about how much scar tissue I may have developed during the time that I was singing with the growth. He said that it would effect how the surgery goes. I was very worried about that because scar tissue doesn’t go away. Luckily, my mom said that he told her they didn’t even need to inject steroids into the location like they had planned. Everything was soft and unscarred. Good news! Now... comes the hard part.

I had been hoping to work again in about 3 months. Everything is planned out to do a good transition gig (maybe more than that) in Jamaica where I can control my hours. Unfortunately my doctor gave me the news the other day that it will be more like 6 months. Gutted. We’ll see if I can prove him wrong. It will be a balance of being patient enough to heal, and being efficient enough to recover asap. Jamaica, or Idaho. Hmmm. It’s going to be hard to be patient. I’m required to go on total vocal rest (no speaking at all whatsoever. Or coughing. Or laughing. Or crying. NO noises! Haha). I have to do that for the first week, then beginning the first day of the second week I’ll add 10 minutes per day. Veeery slowly but better safe than sorry. I promise this will be my longest blog in a while hahaha. From now on, I’ll try to explain how my recovery is going. As for the rest of the day, they sent me home with antibiotics, acid reflux pills (preventative), and pain meds. I’m also supposed to take the extra strength mucinex. Oh my god I feel like I need a pill box like an old lady. Thankfully my mother is here to help me remember my regimen while I’m a bit foggy. Yes. I’m foggy now :). I forgot to mention that I’m also supposed to do some light humming out through my nose and sniffing sharply through my nose. I’m supposed to do this for a few seconds every hour. I forgot. He didn’t go over it with me and my mom mentioned it to me when I was heavily sedated. Only when I was writing this did I remember. Crap! There goes my plan to be a perfect patient. I’ll do better to remember tomorrow. Setting an alarm. 

So the end of my day of surgery is drawing near. I slept most of the day in a room with a humidifier, then acted like a zombie on the couch. My sweet mom crushed my medicine up in the rest of my apple sauce, made me my protein shake, brought me water, and later heated some soup. I feel like a baby again, but I think I deserve it :).