A successful surgery!

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone!

Well, I had a successful surgery last Friday. The C-Toma was much

larger and more extensive than the doc had hoped for. As I

understand it from the conversation my wife had with the surgeon

afterwards, and the phone call I had with him on Sunday (he called

me at home to check up on how I was doing!), not only had the c-toma

eroded the hearing bones, but it had also wrapped around my taste

nerve and was headed through the bone to the brain. The taste nerve

had to be cut, and I'm now learning how to eat on one side of my

mouth (not too hard since it hurts right now to chew on the other

side!). My wife was reluctant to tell me about the taste nerve,

until I had her try a cracker I was eating because I thought it

tasted like glue.

Now I have a protheses (sp?) for my hearing bones, and a patch on or

near the dura. The doc said I have to take it very easy for two

weeks, no lifting or anything that might cause the protheses or the

patch to dislodge. I even have to be careful about how I sneeze

(and of course my wife has taken it to the extreme saying I can't

sneeze for two weeks!).

I still have a lot of pain, and the Vicodin helps somewhat. I'm

sleeping better and watching a lot of TV. I have packing that will

dissolve mostly on it's own, and anything that's left he will remove

when I see him again on April 5th. He said it would also take a

couple of months for the packing behind the new ear drum (yeah, got

one of those, too) to dissolve and then we'll be able to find out

how well the new protheses will work.

I think the hardest thing about it all is watching my wife having to

do everything around the house because I can't risk undoing any of

the doctor's work.

Thanks again everyone for the support and education I have gotten

here. It really scares me to think what would have happened if I

had followed the wishes of my HMO and let my regular ENT perform

this surgery. It's really hard for me to accept the risk that they

were willing to put up with on my behalf just to try and save

themselves a few bucks.

Dave Sedovic