Yesterday, April 21st, I had an appointment with Dr. Filatov in Prince George. As usual, he examined my throat and larynx areas with his endoscopy. I have become more used to the procedure but it is still very unpleasant. The first thing he noticed was the swelling of of my epiglottis has subsided but, only marginally. I have been thinking that the swelling had gone down considerably more due to the fact that I am able to swallow just about everything easily. This is not the case.
Next, Dr. Filatov examined the area around my voice box and larynx. This area is now causing him some concern. The endoscopy clearly showed a stenos (narrowing) of the airway and the top of my voice box opening to the larynx shows granulation of the tissue. Granulation is a natural part of the body's healing process. This particular area was badly burned by the radiation treatments and the granulation looks like a "web" which is restricting the flow of air. The result of this is the raspy sound of my voice and the difficulty I have in talking.
Dr. Filatov wants me to start wearing a plug on the end of my tracheostomy (trachea tube) for an hour or two at a time, at various points throughout the day, to see if I can get enough air in through my nose and mouth to function on a normal basis. The plug will assist help me to talk by allowing the air which I breathe out to travel over the vocal cords. At some point, he will have to remove the "web" surgically.
Next, we spoke about my hearing and yes, it is more than likely that the significant loss of hearing I have experienced over the past few months is a direct result of the radiation. He examined my ears with a scope and told me there was fluid behind both ear drums. He then did a procedure to suction the fluid out of the ear canals by piercing the ear drums and then he installed "shunts/tubes" in both ears to drain the fluid on an ongoing basis. The procedure was uncomfortable but relatively painless. It was noisy as he suctioned off the fluid and it reminded me of the noise I heard when I had an MRI, it was really loud. I can hear much better now and the plugs will dissolve over time.
I will see him again on June 25th and he will decide at that time what to do about the granulation/web. Until at least that time I will continue to have the trachea tube. Oh the joy of that.
Well that's it for now. I'll keep you posted.
Love to everyone.
Rick
P.S.: So maybe you are wondering about the Title of this post. Spring has arrived at the farm. The snow is all but melted and the result is soft ground and MUD!!! Oh my, what MUD!!! To make matters worse, it started to rain on Sunday night and continued to rain most of Monday and yesterday. That made that MUD that much more MUDDIER. Today it is breezy and mostly sunny and that will help dry up the ground but until then, we have MUD!!!.
Later,
H
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