Insides Revealed

8 weeks. That's how long since my last appointment. Which feel more and more like a blur. As does the June 18th date of my surgery. And now, another date to mark, October 9th, nearly 4 months since my surgery. Last Wednesday, before my 3:45 appointment with my Endocrinologist, I had ironically received a notification of my LabCorp blood-work to my phone just 15 minutes prior. Normally, I pop open the results ASAP as my curiosity usually gets the best of me in wanting to know where my levels are. I get more and more adept at reading my labs to understand the new number I have to check just as a Diabetic might of insulin levels. Gratefully, I don't have to check my numbers that frequently, but nevertheless, the monitoring game continues. But this time, I decided to just wait and let me doctor do their informing. I left a couple conference calls right before my appointment and shot up to the 6th floor of the medical building at the hospital campus where my doctor's office

Not much has happened and yet, there is a lot going on. Emily is in the final phase of her practicum, another family visit with my Dad here to help with Noah is coming to a close in a couple weeks, and I've had a headache on the left side of my head for the past week. Although it hasn't worsened, it also isn't going away and normal remedies like Tylenol, don't seem to be helping. I'm not symptomatic in any other way in the sense of vision issues along with the headache, but it's still something I need to checkout. The Endocrinologist did get a call last week and said it probably wasn't the Synthroid, so there's that at least... Today was the next phase in repair and a return to normal. My voice has continued to ebb and flow between hoarse, tired, low, and seemingly everything in between. Monday, I was supposed to have my first Speech Therapy appointment, however, as I'm pulling off the highway at the exit to the University Hospital campus, I get a

Having majored in music in college, in voice no less, of course the impacts of this surgery on my long term speaking and singing voice raised concern. Since the onset of the bronchitis in October last year, my voice has turned hoarse and at times or just leaves me altogether after prolonged periods of speaking. During the day, I'm on countless calls, in meetings, working with my team one on one, and then come home to sing and play with our son. In one of the second opinion consultations I had, the doctor referred me to a vocal specialist to dig a little deeper as during a Thyroidectomy, there are two sets of nerves that if damaged during surgery, can cause permanent damage to the voice: the recurrent laryngeal nerve and the external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve. The doctor wanted to confirm that nothing else concerning was going on that could cause surprise during surgery. On June 4th, I was scheduled a visit to this new provider, an otolaryngologist and a speech