One year ago today....

[Tod]

....or yesterday if you count when surgery started.....
...or tomorrow if you count when they woke me up.

My surgery experience was so different I most often hesitate to comment on posts from new members as I really don't want to make someone more nervous than they already are. I had a long surgery and a long, but not really all that long compared to others, recovery.Throughout the whole ordeal, I think everything was much harder on my family than on me. They had to watch and worry (not to be confused with watch and wait). All I had to do was wake up each time I slept and get on with healing - whether it was sitting in a chair or walking, brushing my teeth and other self-maintenance, or just getting through the wave of depression and fear that hit me once folks had explained things to me and I could understand them.

Imagine really needing to talk, but completely unable to even write. Pointing at an alphabet page is an exercise in desperate futility at times.

Getting the breathing tube out was a big day. Just as a big was removing the feeding tube (for the record, I still maintain that it was accidentally dislodged after the doc had approved its removal and that I did not do it intentionally).

In other words, as everyone knows that has been through surgery (whichever kind), there are all sorts of milestones to mark progress.


A week from tomorrow I see vocal cord specialist about next steps for my voice.

I join the BAHA collective on April at 8:30 am.

Next MRI is April 11.

And most importantly, tonight my wife and I celebrate today's anniversary and Valentine's Day  a day early. I missed it last year and have definitely made up for it this year....I hope she likes what I got her. ;-)

Life is good, and each breath is sweet.

-Tod

[Jim Scott]

Tod ~

Congratulations on achieving your one-year surgery anniversary and the strides you've made in that time.  I can understand your reluctance to post about your lengthy surgery and post-op problems to a 'newbie' but I would encourage you to do so in an abbreviated form and, to the point, emphasize your notable improvement, since.  This demonstrates that even if things are a bit grim initially, they can and do improve.  You're living proof!  Again, congratulations and thanks for your contributions to the ANA discussion forums.  They are noted and appreciated.

Jim 

[Kaybo]

Tod~
What a year you have had but so glad you are here to share it all with us...& I KNOW that is how your wife feels!

Happy ANniversary!

K 

[Tod]

Jim and Kaybo, thanks for both of you for the kind words. I was out walking in the sunshine at lunch, I was thinking about how good I feel, despite the remaining deficits. Despite their existence, I hardly think about them except when their presence is made known, like when I have to speak. For instance, I hardly ever thinking about the fact that I have been coughing without relief for a year now.

Like the man said, "The roof don't leak when it ain't raining, when it is raining, I cain't fix it nohow."

-Tod