I'm only a few days out of my bilateral selective ND, so my opinion of it may be stronger than the TORS. It is no cakewalk. I have 15 staples on the left side, and 10 staples on the right. The way it's stapled makes the skin very pooched out, and the remaining skin very taught. I didn't have much loose skin there to begin with! The doctor made it sound like I would be doing great by today. His words were "I think you'll be surprised how good you feel by Tuesday".

Maybe I overestimated, but I still feel crumby. I think it's the drain tubes. They are very uncomfortable. The good news is that the tubes are coming out in less than 2 hours! I made an appointment with my local ENT to remove the tubes, since the output from each has been pretty small over the last 24 hours.

I hate the tubes. I hate them a lot. Stripping the tubes is painful when you release and it suctions. They're constantly in the way, and I think the right side must be rubbing something inside of me that makes my clavicle area hurt when I do the shoulder exercises.

My ears, chin, and neck are numb. It's a completely bizarre feeling. It's a little uncomfortable to swallow for two reasons. One because of the skin on the outside being tight, and the other is that while they were intubating me, they knocked off another scab, and it caused some bleeding while I was under. I think that's causing me some pain now. It's not bad. I'm mostly just taking tylenol. Once in a while, I will take 1mg of dilaudid, which is the narcotic which has the least nauseating effects on me.

I'm eagerly, and nervously waiting on the results of the pathology report. I will admit that I'm terrified. It's been a bumpy road already, and I can't imagine this dragging out for another few months or even years of recovery from the RT. The thought of it keeps me up sometimes, not to mention the general fear of recurrence. I don't know how some of you guys do it.

The path results should be in later this week, and the staples come out on friday.