Mine was also described as Low-Grade which did not make me feel any better in the early days.
Like - why have I had this disfiguring surgery, impaired speech, a big shark bite in my wrist etc etc
Time does help and I am over worrying about most of it now or just put it in the "not so important" category as I am alive and doing OK

I hear you, my friend. I've spent a lot of time since early September wondering why the hell it had to be my *speech* that I lost, rather than a body part that wasn't such a big part of who I am.

I do a lot of teaching at work, both with patients and new nurses/nursing students, and that's my favorite part of the job. It's what I'm best at. Before I was a nurse, I was a singer, and did voice-overs for commercials and voice-mail systems and the like. Losing the ability to speak clearly has done a number on me psychologically that I'm only just beginning to recognize.

Maybe that's why my posts are so long, eh?

As to the disfigurement of a radical neck or tissue transplant...I can't speak (hah!) to that. My "defect" (doesn't Medicine come up with the best terms?) is all internal, so nobody stares or notices that my neck is one-sided.

It's funny, isn't it, how "bearable" and "not a big deal" change when you're faced with diagnosis, and then treatment, and then recovery?

Maybe someday I'll get to the point where the fact that I'm alive and doing OK--and that's huge right now, don't get me wrong--outweighs what I feel like I've lost.