Voice Injection Successful (kinda)

I am sorry that I have not updated this thing for a while. It's mainly because everything is pretty much back to normal and I see most of you guys everyday. But for the record, here is an update.

I had the voice injection scheduled for April. I did all the pre-op stuff and showed up at the surgery center at 6am. After being stripped, poked and prodded, they wheeled me down to the operating room where a couple Anesthesiologists seemed to have some concern. They did not like my EKG and were astonished that my thyroid level was so high. Against the wishes of my surgeon, they called-off the surgery until I got an approval from a Cardiologist.

So I go to the Cardiologist and do the treadmill thing and everything checked-out. Turns out that I do have a strange little hick-up in my EKG, but nothing to worry about - evidently that's how I am wired.

So in May we try the voice injection again. Turns out that the doctor is injecting something called Voice Gell and it should last about 3-months. The whole procedure suppose to last 30-minutes.

Surgery and I just do not get along. Remember my thyroid surgery was suppose to be a couple hours turned out to be over 7-hours. Turns out that this simple little voice gell injection took almost 3-hours. Dr Hoffman had a hard time getting the injection needle where he needed it. They had a tube down my throat and he had a hard time seeing in his microscope - evidently my throat is not like other folks. When I woke-up, I found that I had three chipped teeth from all the wrangling they had to do. But as soon as I could speak after waking up, Dr Hoffman had me count to ten and my voice sounded perfect.

I thought the chipped teeth were part of the all the disclaimers that I signed and I would have to cover the Dentist cost ($176 copay). But when the Surgery Center called to see how I was doing the next week, Dana reminded them about the chipped teeth and told them about the cost. About a month later I received a Visa gift card in the mail from the Surgery Center to cover the dentist cost. Awsome!

And my voice did sound wonderful again. All the people that I work with everyday kept reminding me how much better it sounded. But, as predicted, the injection started to wear-off around August - almost 3-months exactly. I have had a visit or two with Dr Hoffman since and there is an injection that will last about two years. While that seems to be the thing to do from my viewpoint, Dr Hoffman said that injection was one of the toughest things he had to do in a while - and this is from a guy who performs surgery every week. He is trying to talk me into doing a pernament soultion that would involve neck surgery and the insertion of a box. We are still debating that.

So here it is September and while my voice is not as strong as right after the injection, it's still better than before the injection. Before we do the next thing (injection or surgery), I have to wait until my voice goes all the way back.

I am scheduled for my next scan in October. After that, if everything checks out, I will either do the 2-year or permanent voice solution.

Jeff