Surgery

I went to dentist December 22 for a routine cleaning and she was concerned with this spot on my tongue that I had never noticed before. She did the oral screening and then gave me a slip of paper and told me to immediately make an appointment with that oral surgeon for a tongue biopsy. That's not terrifying at all!

I told myself I wouldn't google it... and that lasted maybe a day or two.  Lets just say I should never have googled it at all.

I went January 2nd and he immediately scheduled me for surgery January 8. And I googled it some more.  Again not a good idea.

Well even with all my googling I was completely not prepared for the after effects.  I didn't realize that even soft foods I couldn't get down because my tongue was so swollen and bruised. I also didn't expect not to be able to talk at all. And then when I could talk a little I would sound so disabled.  I physically couldn't get certain sounds out. I spent several days unable to get out of bed. That was during the snow days.  I couldn't talk to the kids so Ant Ant called and facetimed them and yelled at them once when they weren't listening at all. I was very glad when they went back to school. My surgery was on a Monday - they went back to school on a Thursday. Then they were out the following week for another two days for snow.  Its been a long month!

Norah even forbade me to talk to anyone when I dropped her off at school.  "Mommy just smile ok. Don't show your tongue. Just smile and nod your head" hahahaha One day a teacher came up me and told me that she had laughed when she asked Norah if she liked all the snow. Norah had replied to her "it was fabulous!" Norah had a panicked look on her face when she thought I would have to actually talk to that teacher. But the teacher left quickly to take another student somewhere so I got away with just smiling that time. Norah has been both fascinated and disgusted with my tongue and constantly asks me to show her my tongue.

I started growing what Jeff called a tail on the side of my tongue.  The surgeon wasn't going to take the stitches out since they were dissolvable but because of how I was healing he took the stitches out Monday.  Taking the stitches out was very painful. When he was done he wrapped my bloody tongue in gauze, patted my head, called me a trooper and then said he would have to cut off that tail!  I teared up thinking he was going to do it right then but he said he wanted to wait three months to see how I heal.   I'm hoping it heals. But after he took the stitches out a lot of the pain I was feeling was gone.

This morning I woke up and felt so much better. And then I ate a sandwich for lunch. Its funny what you dream of eating after eating chicken broth and applesauce for weeks.  All I wanted was to be able to eat a sandwich. You don't realize how much work your tongue does in eating and swallowing until you don't have it.

The biopsy came back benign - all clear. They don't know why that spot appeared or if it will come back. We are praying its a one and done thing.   On the plus side I have lost over 5lbs already so this forced diet after all the Christmas cookies has been one good thing of all this.  I also haven't heard Brent laugh so hard as he filmed me coming out of the anesthesia.  He fully enjoyed every minute of that.