I hope that otolaryngologists and other health care providers would read my book so that they can learn how a patient feels and experience major surgery and loss their ability to speak.

Receiving empathetic and supportive care by the medical staff was extremely important to me. Surgeons can be impatient, rushing, and in a hurry to finish rounds, especially when they have surgeries scheduled. Physicians need to realize how helpless and dependant their post surgical mute laryngectomees are. They require more patience and time to communicate their thoughts, questions and concerns. Their inability to speak is a very stressful and unfamiliar reality and requires patience and support, particularly from the medical team. Patients should be encouraged and allowed to fully express their feelings and concerns. This may be a slow and tedious process as they often need to communicate by writing. The emotional well being of the patient is a very important element of the post surgical care and ultimate recovery and adaptation to a life as a laryngectomee.

I also noted that my surgeons rarely examined any part of my body except for the surgical sites. Medical protocol has always required that a patient must be seen and treated as a whole � not as a body system. This is especially important with elderly post surgical patients who may have other medical problems.

I wrote several articles in the medical literature to educate and inform physicians about these issues. To those interested they can get one of the recent one through this URL:
http://www.freewebs.com/dribrook/Cancer.my%20exper.SurgOncol.09.proofs.pdf

These issues are also discussed in my book My Voice on Chapter 16. The book can be read (and obtained) on my Blog:http://dribrook.blogspot.com/

I Brook MD