Back in the spring of this year I wrote and told many of you the doctors at Yale felt my professional voice had been compromised due the remediation of the brain tumor I had (well still have if you want to be technical). It was unlikely the voice would return. AH! Unlikely..........lots of room there! Well my long strange trip is now taking me back to the operating room in two weeks. On November 2nd I will undergo what is called a laryngeal medialization. Fancy words huh? What the procedure does is as follows:
My throat doc, Dr. Young will make a two-three inch incision on the right side of my throat, will then make an incision in the right vocal chord and start laying in Teflon strips to build up the size of the damage chord. Once he is satisfied with the size, he then will bring to chord to the mid-line, sew it in place, close up and send me to recovery. So YES! I'm getting implants.......
This should bring my voice back to a better level than it is currently. Later in November I will undergo a second procedure which will be a re-construction of my V-I-P or soft palate. That area atrophied at the same time I lost my right vocal chord creating a "perfect storm" and thus my loss of voice. I meet with the surgeon who will do the work next week. So suffice it to say it'll be a busy next 4 weeks medically.
Will these two procedures return my voice.........well, yes & no. The voice will never be what it once was, but maybe, just maybe I'll be able to do games again.
How did this all come about? Well, the damage to the cranial nerves controlling my right side are now permanently damaged, something we knew could happen but did not expect. All of which means the doctors can now preform reconstructive surgery.
Thus the window opens.
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