I missed Gary's get together for a preliminary procedure scheduled the day before in Philly, an had the full procedure one week ago today at UPenn hospital in Philadelphia. I was in the hospital for five days instead of the projected three. Horrible recovery process. I am barely speaking or swallowing. This was due to severe sleep apnea with off the charts test results. I has bee almost a year since I started the fight with insurance company to cover the 3 procedures involved, and ended up having to pay for one of the three out of pocket , but there may be an option yet still. Tonsills/adenoids out, UPP- enlarging hole in back of my throat to about twice the size and removing uvula, and TORS - trans oral robotic surgery to remove substantial excess tissue from back of tongue. Recovery is projected at three weeks and though I scoffed at this at first, i had so man complications in the hospital and now out I believe it will be longer than that. It is an awful procedure to go through. I have gone from 191 lbs to 173 lbs in 8 days. I wanted to get back to performing and singing by labor day but I'm thinking Oct 1st is more reasonable. Don't know if anybody else has had this but would like to know what your recovery was like. I'm also on constant pain killers that impede the thought processes for everything else. Update to come several days from now.

Sparky ... I am SO sorry to hear about this ... I can't imagine what you are going through ... Try to stay positive, because that WILL help with the healing process ...
You will be in our prayers for a full and rapid recovery ...

BTW ... At some time in the future I would like to know how this was related to sleep apnea ...

That's a nasty piece of surgery, Sparky. It will take quite a while to heal, and you may experience some voice changes, but hopefully, they will not be significant. Get well soon.

Tony, sleep apnea is more often than not related to obesity, but not always. With obese individuals, the soft pallet and surrounding tissue tend to drift down over the glottis when the patient falls asleep. This causes the cessation of breathing until the patient becomes aware of the oxygen deprivation and awakens, often gasping for breath.

Not all sleep apnea patients, however, are obese. Some are normal weight, but still have more uvula and soft pallet tissue than normal, thereby causing the sleep apnea problem. In rare cases, the apnea is so severe it requires surgical intervention to prevent heart damage.

Gary

I've known that for sure ... Lydia has sleep apnea - uses a CPAP machine every night - and as you know she is far from obese ... I just didn't know how it related to the uvula and soft pallet ...
thanks for the info ...

You guys are scaring the crap out of me !!!!!
Sparky get well soon..

Sparky, my thoughts and prayers are with you as you recover from this.

Sparky,
Good luck with the recovery - get well soon.

Deane

Sounds like serious stuff. Best of luck for a speedy recovery, keep us posted.

Bill

Sparky hope the best to you man. My dad had tonsils out at age 35 very hard just like you describe.

On another note, when we spent the night with Drew in Denver for his Esophageal endoscopy test, he snored constantly through the night and kept waking up all night. He had to have sleep apnea at 265 lbs. He finished his 28 Radiation and Chemo treatments almost 5 weeks or so ago. Monday before last he had surgery on his left side including three incisions to check lung spots that showed up in his recent CAT scan, before the Ivor Lewis Esophagectomy procedure which will go forward this monday morning.

What I wanted to say is, I've been staying with Drew for 2 weeks to get him up in the middle of the night for his pain medication. There are no more sleep apnea signs whatsoever at 220. He's lost at least 45 lbs through all of this.

Get better Sparky

Sparky,

I will be praying for a full recovery from this horrendous situation.

God Bless,
Don from Canada