Texas4Life

Texas4Life, I am starting you a thread of your own so we will have a current thread on this type of surgery.

Your nurse gave you a good explanation about braces. You asked about the difference between the braces. The soft brace is made of foam like material, the hard shell is a molded piece of hard plastic. Some people find the hard shell irritates & rubs areas on their neck, not at the incision. They would buy a piece of sheep skin & use it on those areas. Another thing, drs now do not often use the braces any longer, same with people having back fusions. Some drs think braces can cause muscles to weaken, so it's truly a mixed bag.

No one can say how you will feel after surgery, everyone's recovery is different. Stay positive for a good recovery. I remember your surgery being on the 27th.

You can do a search on the net abut the two collars.

Take care.

Here is a thought, do you have a a blender at home? You must eat a healthy diet to help with your healing & of course you will need your strength. You can put food in a blender & you should be able to eat it. In all honesty, I know baby food was mentioned in the other thread, however, I don't know of anyone that went on the baby food diet after surgery. I honestly don't think it would be nutritious for an adult. I would get a good blender & not worry about finding baby food. You can bake a potato or a sweet potato & run it through a blender. Anything you normally eat can go through a blender, including fruits. I think this will take some of your stress off of your shoulders.

I honestly cannot answer your question as to when you will be able to sit at a desk & do your job. A lot of this is going to depend on what your dr finds once he does your surgery. Another thing when you think you may be ready to sit at a desk, try it slow & work up your time, try 2 hours & get up & move around. Your body will let you know when you have done too much.

Keep in mind you may not need to do any of this to your food, however, if you need to do it to certain foods you have this option.

Good luck with your surgery tomorrow!!! Check in when you feel up to it.

So sorry to read this! Is it all of the time or when you try to eat or drink something?

Keep in mind your throat is swollen inside, your voice will return back to normal. I know you are freaking out, understandable, but try to calm yourself down. It sounds like you have had a reaction to medication. What medications did the dr send you home with? If you don't get a return call from the dr, call again.

The IV steroids will help you a lot with swelling, pain & inflammation. Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

Just checking on you to see how you are doing!

So much has happened straydog. We have MUCH to discuss. So much to discuss!

I am home...again. Hopefully for good this time. Last Saturday, I came home but did not realize that I came home with massive hematomas that grew so large that they cut off my ability to swallow anything...including my own saliva! I felt like I was drowning and couldn't stop spitting. I immediately called my surgeon's "hotline" number and they told me to drop everything and get to the ICU. I went back to the hospital and was immediately admitted for what seemed like a non-stop battery of tests by specialists and their notepad-clad students/residents. The next problem was: they would not let me eat, drink or wash until they found out what was going on. No one was willing to take the lead. Whispering ensued. You first, no you first. Meanwhile days were passing and I was forced to watch TV tied to my bed while watching one Applebee's commercial after another. Cold tequila commercials, 1800 ads, you name it. Even bottled water ads. I couldn't have anything. They were starving me to death and then demanding I piss in a can. I don't have anything to give you!
Finally on day four, they gave me a little food and and IV drip, and that accounted for all of my bodily fluids for DAYS. They couldn't make up their minds whether a speech therapist or a neuro specialist should go first. And I sat there wondering how bad this bill was going to be for doing nothing. The speech therapist and her resident finally came in apparently after much handwringing and arm twisting after a few days of dexamethasone IV injections to see if that would fix things because I was failing taking sips of water and holding it down earlier in the week. So she put me through tests of drinking water and I did much better. They finally offered me french toast which I managed and then finally let me see the neuro specialist who ended up doing several deep ultrasounds on both sides of my throat only to find two massive hematomas under the areas where they cut me, that will take a great deal of Decadron (dexamethasone) and 2-3 months of healing before it's all over. I finally picked up the scripts for it an hour or so go and will take that as prescribed because it seemed like it bailed my ass out.

What happened in the hospital with the catheter being ripped out my penis to the point where I can still feel it a week later and the bruising and the insane "candy stripers" who couldn't find a vein to draw blood on both of my arms, the deep footlong deep bruising down my right arm....I look like a darned druggie straydog. I have a meeting with the surgeon, complete with pictures -- next week. My pain doctor's appointment is 16 June. This was a hospital from hell with people who should be fired. The pre-op lead asked people to move me from the gurney to the op table. They sat in the back never looking up from their smartphones!!!!!! Not one of them helped. I've never seen so much BS in my life. I young woman in charge of the OR ran over to help him and they got me over to the op table. We were all sitting their in shock, like, why are you all even here in the OR if you're not going to help???

And all the time, we've talked, I was more concerned with the actual surgery. That went beautifully. Everything else went wrong.

So, I took a bunch of pictures and called the surgeon's assistant. The surgeon called me back and wants to setup a mtg with the Patient Advocate team. I am really angry about what happened. To his credit, the surgeon did come to the hospital and checked on me. The problem was, I was still in the care of those nurses, residents, and inept circus clowns and felt like if I said anything negative, there would be repercussions. I have a follow-up meeting to show him the pictures of what they did to me, 10 JUNE. I also have a follow-up mtg with my Pain Doctor who referred me to this surgeon. I have a soft and a hard collar that I wear at my leisure. I'm actually sitting down at my desk writing this quick note to you. I don't spend more than a few mins sitting though. I move around a lot because I'm still terrified that because they had me bound to my bed for so long that I had to had blood clot specialist use that machine on my legs. They wouldn't let me get up at all without any permission Straydog! This is Georgetown University MedStar hospitals in Washington, DC Straydog. This is supposed to be one of the best hospitals in the world!!! They are very Catholic, I guess you'd say in how they treat patients. The deep purple bruises on my body are over 6 inches long! And I can STILL feel where they ripped the catheter out 7-8 days ago now!!!

In my heart, I know I want them fired. But it will not happen and I'll end up feeling like crap no matter what. Nothing will come from a PA meeting. Unless you tell me otherwise. Oh, and you were right, they sent out the survey twice to me to fill out about their care...before I left the first time and after the second time. I'm not sure of the complete outcome of my care, so I haven't filled it out yet. I guess I feel like I'm waiting for another shoe to drop.

No, they haven't talked at all about the hematomas because they found out what they were after the surgeon left and then I was discharged. All I know is that they are basically deep bruises that will take time to heal. They put me on an aggressive dexamethasone regiment, first via IV drip for days (prior to knowing what they were by the way) and now that I'm home, an aggressive regiment of dexamethasone for over a week. It has allowed me to take meds and get this: drink sips of water without feeling like I'm drowning.

The surgeon was top flight. I would have him do another surgery on me again. It wasn't him (?) or do you think he bears some responsibility? The people in the OR need to be fired. He is just the attending surgeon and has no control over those folks right?

Have you heard of using underlying stitches and purple sealing glue? What he did was use one of my neck creases (hence anterior vice posterior) and cut along one of those natural neck creases so that when it heals you can never see the actual incision. Then he moves the trachea, throat, etc. so he has complete access to my cervical spine. He removed C3-C4, C4-C5 and C5-C6 and replaced them with titanium plates and screws. I can't feel a thing. I was REALLY hoarse for three days, on the order of my tonsillectomy, that I was describing to you earlier. He then uses purple "glue" that when the incision heals, it "crumbles off/falls off" on it's own and you (allegedly) can't see the incision cut at all (because it's in the natural neck crease line). So I'm not supposed to wash it, touch it, clean it or use anti-septic cleanser on it at all. After a few days, I gave away all of my baby food and broth that I could find. I kept the Granny Smith Apple Sauce; I love that stuff! lol

So what am I looking at as far as questions to ask him. I know you have questions about how the hematomas formed. I am too angry right now to think straight and for that I'm sorry. Not all of them were bad. Some were good and I gave the surgeon their names and he wasn't surprised. He knew the "good ones". I am disgusted with how long they starved and dehydrated me. Last night at 2338 hrs, something smelly dislodged from my throat and I saved it in a plastic bag. I don't know what it is and I've never seen it before. It came from the right side of my throat where I had had problems getting meds to go and stay down. It was brown and about 1 inch long. It is not the color or texture of any of the meds I'm taking. Thoughts?

I just ate a blueberry and felt like I was choking and was going to die. Is that normal this soon after this kind of surgery? I don't have pain at all. Just a pending sensation that if I eat anything, except smoothies, I'm going to die. The ultrasounds they performed just showed lots of bruising; nothing that could be aerated w/ a needle, else that's what they were prepared to do. I guess I'm freaked out now because I don't know what I'm really supposed to be experiencing given this curve ball!!! I have a urologist's appointment in a couple of weeks for a PVR and a uroflow test. They are both quite painful and take some time in a waiting room before being let go from the visit, so I will let him know about the catheter incident too.

If all that will happen is me being heard at the PA meeting without any severe consequences, is there any real reason to go? Does it go in someone's dossier? their professional files? I'm not looking for punitive damages. I'm physically injured and traumatized already from the severity of the surgery and then for this to happen only exacerbates thing exponentially.

Right now, I'm concerned about eating. I always feel like I have something stuck in my throat. Thoughts?

Just checking on you to see how you are feeling, check in when you can.