Life After Lary

Bryce and I got in last night about 8:45 and immediately went to bed.  Yesterday was exhausting and extremely wonderful!!!  The latest news is that the CT scan was clear.  There was a little spot on a scar line that they took a biopsy of, but they feel confident that they are being overly cautious.  It's the spot where he places his electrolarynx to talk.  So it's likely just irritated.  But that's it!!!!!  He'll go back in 2 months for the next scan.

The surgeon actually walked up to us in the hallway while Bryce was weighing in to quickly let us know that it looked good.  WHEW!!!!!!!  I spent the first part of the time in our little room applying mascara.  I didn't want to look like a train wreck for the rest of the appointments if I couldn't maintain control of myself in this appointment with her.

From there we headed downtown for a string of appointments with the head and neck center.  First he saw Jodi, his speech therapist.  She is VERY pleased with his progress.  He picked up some new supplies to try out.  The stoma has gone through many phases during the healing process,so he needs new new and different things.  He was informed that he no longer has to wear a lary tube.  This is fun, actually!!!  It annoyed him.  So no more of that!!

There were great parts of this appointment, and a part that really made my heart hurt.  She wanted to see what he might sound like.  She wanted us to see if he could push air in a certain way to make some noise.  In order to do this, she puts a tube through his nose, down into his throat and asks him to say "AHHH."  NOW.... if you've followed his blog for a while, you'll know how much he HATES to have things shoved through his nasal cavity.  It causes him to gag. severely.  Watching this is painful for me.  I can see how uncomfortable he is.  His body violently shakes, tears start to flow, gagging, gagging, gagging.  I just want to start throwing elbows, rip the thing out and yell at them to leave him alone.  Instead, I sit on the edge of my seat, nails digging into my thighs and try not to tear up myself.  The good news is that after a couple of minutes, he was able to make noise.  We heard a little bit of his own voice.  After that... BOOM, it was over and we could both breathe again.

new supplies

That was all good, bad and ugly.  After he was calm again, he opened up his catalog and started shopping for stuff that he wants to try out.  It was funny.  It was like watching him browse through a catalog for new jeans or something.

The next visits were with the lymphedema people in the head & neck center.  First the guy that worked with fitting him with his new "jaw bra."  Then followed up with one of the ladies that taught us both how to retrain his body to move the fluids out of his neck/jaw area and into another lymph section to help relive him of the swelling that never goes away in his right jaw.

After all of this excitement we were headed for the appointments to remove his feeding tube.  The doctor walks in and lets him know that this was going to hurt.  A LOT.  But only for about a minute.  It was hilarious.  Bryce wasn't expecting that and nearly fell off the bed with laughter.  It was quick!  But it certainly wasn't painless.  She didn't lie.  His belly is a little tender today, but I CAN HUG HIM!!!!!!!  When we saw the boys, Bowen quickly asked Bryce if he could stop worrying about hurting his belly.  It made me think "Wow!!  The boys have had to do sideways hugs because of where their heads hit.  THEY can start to love on their daddy normally too!!"

So that was it.  And we rode off into the sunset to get back home.  It was actually sunset as we hit Katy/Brookshire area.  The sunset was gorgeous.  I think God painted the sky just to let us know:
Hey guys.... I got this!!!!