Surgery Over. In Recovery

I just hit Post on the last entry when the doctor came to see me.  Yes, he was an ENT surgical resident.  No, he did not look 12.  He had a beard which, following the Kelly model, makes him 14.

The surgery went perfectly.  They couldn't have been happier with the procedure.  They are confident they got rid of all the cancer from her mouth/tongue.  Even the lymph nodes they took from her neck looked good.  They won't know for sure until the biopsies get through pathology, but they feel optimistic.

The tissue for the tongue flap came from Kiara's left lat (back) muscle.  There may be some muscle weakness as it heals, but physical therapy will overcome that.

They make the flap larger than it seemingly needs to be because it will shrink over time.  So, right now, her tongue is too big for her mouth.  And because it extends back into her throat, it is sitting on top of her voicebox.  This means that the tracheostomy tube will be in for a few weeks (we were anticipating only a week) to allow her to breathe (generally a good thing).  As the swelling goes down, they will evaluate when the tube comes out.

The scar on her neck now runs ear to ear.  In fact, they used the incision from the previous surgery as an easy entry for this one.  There is also an incision that runs from the neck incision to under her chin.  Because they didn't have to do the jaw-splitting thing, the incision doesn't come up over her chin.  No Kirk Douglas cleft for her.

The biggest challenges will be swallowing and communicating.  We knew this going in.  We already starting exploring text-to-speech apps for one of those iThings (Kelly editorial comment) that can turn Kiara's typing into spoken word.  Imagine if you will Kiara with the voice of James Earl Jones.  I'm guessing Kiara's next Facebook poll will be "If you could have anyone else's voice, whose would it be?"

And date nights will no longer be dinner out.  Unless, of course, the sommelier can recommend a nice vintage meal-replacement formula suitable for a feeding tube.  I see more movies and plays in our future.

Kiara will be in Recovery for a couple of hours, then they'll move her to her room.  I'll get to see her at that point and try to relay all the love, affection, and support that have been offered up today.  I don't know how we'll ever make it up to you all, but we'll absolutely try.

If I don't get to it tonight, the blog will continue tomorrow after we all get some sleep.  Our love to you all.