My tonsil and neck dissection surgery experience - Oct 2020

Having decided the tumour was operable I was scheduled for surgery on October 8th.
I arrived at the Day of Surgery unit and was told I’d be first in and the only job that morning. The op would take about 4 hours, which was longer than I’d expected. They were planning to take out the tumour robotically and do a neck dissection at the same time.

Modern general anaesthetics are so much improved. I last had a general in 1984, ironically for a throat investigation which was clear, and the difference is huge. I was away with the fairies before I could tell them my main hobbies and woke up in the recovery room in what seemed to be the very next minute. The first thing I did was check I had tubes coming out of me to be sure they’d actually done it, and then checked for any broken teeth, one of the many listed risks. All seemed ok. I was a little groggy but with it enough to exchange a few words with my lovely surgeon who popped in to tell me that it’d all gone according to plan. 

Up to the ward where I was put in a bay of  four gents. I had a feeding tube up my nose, a drainage tube in my neck, two drips, one water and one morphine, and a catheter. So I was pretty well wired up. There was very little discomfort for the rest of that day and I slept well, probably due to the anaesthetic and morphine.

The morphine drip is self administered by pressing a button which pumps a precise amount into you. You can’t overdose. However, day 2 was also fairly comfortable and I didn’t use it much, so much so that they told me to use it more and not ‘try to be stoic’. This annoyed me as I wasn’t trying to be stoic, I just wasn’t in much pain! A physio came and got me to walk around pushing my drips trolley with me but I had to stay within the ward.  I spent the rest of the day sitting up reading and playing on my iPad. 

Day three, however, it got a bit more painful especially in the night. By now they’d taken the morphine drip away and I was using paracetamol, ibuprofen and oramorph in turn. My daily checks were going well, my feeding tube taken out and my catheter removed.  Mushy food was sent up every mealtime and I managed to negotiate eating and drinking to the left side of my throat to avoid it going down my windpipe. (I’d been practising this for a week or two before surgery and it certainly paid dividends.) In the end I never used the feeding tube. 

Day 4 was still pretty painful but was dulled by the drugs combination. I was managing to eat a little more quickly and actually enjoying some of the food and drinks, including Fortisips of course! (Mocha flavour was my favourite.) My neck drain was removed, ouch, and I was finally free of all encumbrances. Now I had no trolley I started regularly going down to the hospital shop for exercise and a newspaper etc. It was five flights of stairs down so really good exercise on the way back up. 

Day 5 I was feeling a bit better and they said I could go home now the risk of haemorrhaging had passed. However they then changed their minds and said I’d need to see my surgeon at her Tuesday morning surgery first. But I took that as a bonus. So I saw her on Tuesday morning where they checked me over and watched me swallow some things via the nasal camera and was dispatched home at lunchtime with two carrier bags full of drugs, Fortisips and a fistful of instructions.

I have to be honest and say that life on the ward can be tiring. There are many interruptions and staff are rushed off their feet. I’m just full of admiration for the way they cope. Covid is a major added complication and people seemed to be being brought onto the ward in the night before being tested, which was a major source of worry. Sleep must be taken as and when as there are so many interruptions. Every four hours without fail they took my blood pressure and asked how I was and gave me painkillers. But there really is no other way of doing it so I’m immensely grateful for their dedication and hard work.

Once home I printed out a daily drugs schedule and kept my painkillers topped up. One piece of advice from my nutritionist was to keep ahead of the pain and not to chase it. Excellent advice. I used 20mm syringes loaded with the analgesics as they were so much easier to squirt down my throat. After a couple of days I stopped the oramorph due to crippling constipation (I now know how vital it is to keep up the laxatives) but managed fine without it. I was waking regularly at 03:00 for a top up but within a week was sleeping through and managing to spread them out more. I was ‘allowed’ 4 doses of paracetamol and 3 doses of ibuprofen each 24 hours which was plenty. I also still had the oramorph as a back up. 

About three weeks in and the  pain had almost gone and I was beginning to eat normally moving from soft to harder food.  That Sunday night fish and chips takeaway, very slowly negotiated, was a real red letter day!

Then, just after it’d healed I started the radio and chemo, which is where I am now....