I've noticed a number of posts mentioning this procedure. Can someone give me a basic explanation of what it is?

Thanks,

Fr. Mike

There are many types of neck dissections, too many to explain in detail here. Suffice it to say that the only difference is in how much of you is removed with each technique. They can range from just taking lymph nodes and surrounding fatty tissue, to taking muscle mass as well. If you want to see what the area cut looks like, go to my story (people section, founder's story) and you can see it at its worst, and later 5 years healed where it doesn't look too bad. Cervical nodes are the first metastasis (separate from immediate local dispersion of the cancer cells), to tissues outside of the squamous type. They usually are removed as they may harbor micro metastasis of the cancer, that once located in the lymph system, can spread to other remote organs of your body.

Hello Fr. Mike, I am sorry you have gotton an invitation to this club we have.

If you do some searching on the internet you will find pictures and drawings of the neck dissection. I would recommend you NOT go looking until after you have one. The look of it is worse than it really is. The procedure consists of an incision from ear to collar bone and from the chin, under the jaw to the other incision kind of a T shape. From there the surgeon has access to the lymph nodes and tissues that populate the neck.

The standard dissection also includes removing the Sternocleidomastoid muscle, a nerve just under that, and the jugular vein. The nerve mentioned operates some of the shoulder muscles on the affected side. These muscles will no longer function and over time the others will take up the movement of the shoulder.

The dissection has variations where the muscles or nerves are not removed. The purpose of the surgery is to get at and remove as many of the lymph nodes and pathways as possible because these are the most probable paths a cancer might take if it has spread outside the orgional tumor. It is a procedure that has been used for some 100 years.

The surgery takes maybe 3 to 5 hours and recovery time (hospital stay) 5 to 7 days. I had a tonsillectomy at the same time and my throat hurt much worse than the neck dissection. (part of the reason is that a good amount of the neck will be numb for quite a while) I did not have tongue surgery so I cannot comment on that. I wish you well and have included you in my prayers.

Fr. Mike, Mark and Brian have given you good information, especially the part about it looking worse than it feels. For me, there was a great deal of swelling, with drains, that made me look like some kind of balloon animal, but that receded over a couple of weeks. By the second day, I did not need pain meds because of the numbness. 14 mos. later, much feeling has returned to my neck, shoulder, and ear on that side. In my case a nerve was cut, but stitched back together and at one year I suddenly regained full range of motion of arm and shoulder. The idea of any surgery is pretty scary, but this one, although major, is as one person on this forum once described it -- almost a walk in the park. If this is on your schedule, you can face it confidently. There will be little or no pain, and if you are in reasonably good health otherwise, the healing will be pretty quick. I also had a graft in my mouth which was monitored hourly, so I had a hard time getting out of the hospital, but when I did, I was out doing yard work the next day, so you can see it is not necessarily debilitating. Whatever your treatment plan, we will be with you every step of the way.
Joanna