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 :).