Hi Jen,
I am a total laryngetcomee and know the terror of not being able to speak or call 911 and tell them what is wrong with me. Although I could speak 8 days after the surgery, it was an on and off thing. I have always been very independent so having this sudden fear was new to me. I have what is called a TEP, a transesaphageal puncture, which is a whoole beteen the esaphagus and the trach that allows me to speak. There is a small prosthesis btween the trach and esaphahgus that forces air up the esaphagus to allow me to speak whne I cover the hole in my neck. My voice which was always very low is now even lower, but intelligible.

I truly do not like the casual way your doctor is treating this. This is major major surgery and may involve taking an artery from your arm which will then need to have skin taken from your leg to cover the area on the arm, etc. I needed none of the extra procedures and my trach and neck dissection took over 14 hours. You should also be being evaluated by the speech dept. to see if you esaphagus will vibrate to allow you to have a TEP.

I would not want to ge into surgery for a neck dissection and come out a toal larygectomee without knowing all my options first. Is there a tumor there? Can it be removed by laser surgery to save the voice box abd if so, will you still be able to eat. Mine, though tiny, was in the wrong spot so they couldn't get enough of a margin and alow me to eat. What other options. You had IMRT. Did it hit the voice box or can you have more rads to this area if it is cancerous.

I'm not a surgeon, but I fail to see how a neck dissection, unless they do a trach, would even expose your voice box. I'd be asking these guys a whole lot of questions before I got on that table, like 'can't you knock me out and take a look now so I can make some intelligent decisions'. They thought they were going to do lser surgery on me, but once I was under anesthsia and they could see the area better, they decided against it. I could have gone to FL for a second opinion, (there were two surgeons in the US that did this at the time), but opted not to. What makes this dr think he will find problems on the voice box? \

See if you can get some answers and get back to us. Definitely find out if more rad and chemo or laser surgery are on option. You wil probably have to travel for laser surgery.

It's been almost 4 years and although I can't swim or sing which I love, life is good. I hope they find nothing, but it is not the 'end of the world' if they do. Sorry to ramble so, but I am pissed at the way your are being treated.

Take care,
Eileen