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!