No, I mean take a really deep breath, the kind you can feel all the way to your toes. How does that feel? To me it feels amazing, because ten years ago I couldn’t do that. So, here is the story of my throat (sounds fascinating doesn’t it!).
About 12 years ago I started having some problems and went to my gynecologist. After the examination he escorted me to his office, told me that I had a large tumor on my right ovary, and we scheduled surgery for two days later. The surgery was a success the 8-pound tumor benign, and everything seemed to be great. As I was groggily coming out of the anesthesia, I do vaguely remember a person in a white lab coat chastising me about something to do with my throat and that is wasn’t his fault. A day or two later I was shown up to the offices of Dr. Trowbridge, an otolaryngologist, or ENT dr. as they are known. Unbeknownst to me, my trachea had a naturally narrow spot just below my vocal cords, while I was being intubated for the surgery; the anesthesiologist forced the tube and scratched my throat. After a CT scan, I was told not to worry about it; it probably wasn’t a big deal. It was called Sub-glottis Stenosis
I went home, recovered from the surgery. Everything seemed to be fine, except for a little nagging cough and being out of breath a little bit. A year later my breathing was pretty tough, but I figured I was pretty heavy and out of shape so that was probably it. Finally, I went to the doctor again. They scoped my throat (a pleasant experience that was destined to become routine) and discovered that scar tissue had seriously formed in my trachea. Dr. Trowbridge explained that he could go in from the inside and clean it out (kind of like roto-roter).
I had my first surgery in July of 2002 for my throat. They had scheduled me to be on a ventilator and in ICU for several days afterward, but I recovered so well that I only ended up staying in there for a day. I figured all was good, Scott retired in August, and I got pregnant right about that time as well.
In October my breathing became difficult again, I went back to Dr. Trowbridge who assured me that after the first tri-mester surgery would be acceptable. I had surgery in late October, but by November my breathing was bad again. It was November that I had surgery again, which was when we discovered that I had miscarried. I made it to the beginning of January, then it was bad again. I went in again, but every time the scar tissue came back, clogging up my trachea even faster than it had the last time. I ended up having my throat routered out 8 times. There were nights when I had so much trouble breathing; I would make Scott take me into the ER because I was afraid that if I fell asleep, I wouldn’t wake up. There were times they said I was breathing through the equivalent of a soda straw.
Everytime I went into the hospital and everywhere that I went in the hospital (like x-ray, or the lab) there was a blue bundle that went with me. At first I didn’t pay very much attention to it. It looked like blue lab towels wrapped with masking tape that I recognized as exposed autoclave tape. When I finally thought to ask about the blue bundle I was told it was a trach kit, in case I suddenly couldn’t breath at all and needed to have a tracheotomy….great.
Finally, Dr. Trowbridge had had enough, the cleaning of my trachea was only lasting about two weeks. He decided that he would try going in from outside, and take about an inch of my trachea out. The surgery was extremely delicate, and required 4 hours of OR time, and a plastic surgeon. It was scheduled for Friday, June 13th, 2003. Not that I was superstitious or anything!! It was the soonest that they could get an OR for that amount of time. The day of the surgery we ended up delaying for about an hour while we waited for Fed-Ex to deliver a specific surgical instrument that he had ordered. But after lots of prayers and fasting the surgery went amazingly well. I woke up in ICU, and after a couple days there and a couple days in telemetry I was able to go home.
I felt pretty good, even took the kids up camping a week or so later. That was a huge mistake. I got a fever and it turned out my incision was infected, so I lay there in the middle of the night; in a tent; a severe fever; a swollen incision that burst; and a flat tire on the truck outside. I didn’t want Scott to know how sick I was, because he had already been through so much, so I waited until the next morning to tell him how bad I was. We got off the mountain, dropped the kids off and headed back into the hospital. Not only was my incision infected but scar tissue had formed on the inside of my trachea again. I was immediately placed in CCU, and then the decision was made that tomorrow they would do a tracheotomy, let my throat heal for a few months and make a decision after that.
I have to say the idea of walking around with a tracheotomy was horrifying to me. I couldn’t even imagine what that was going to be like. And through it all, there sat that blue bundle, staring at me. That night my family and I prayed all night. The next morning my nurse (who also happened to be LDS) came into my room to start prepping me for surgery. I started coughing really bad and suddenly coughed up a huge gob of goo. I used a tissue to wipe it out of my mouth, and realized that I could suddenly breath. I looked at the nurse, she looked at me and we both had the realization that I wasn’t going to need a tracheotomy that day. When I talked to my surgeon, he asked what had happened, after I told him the story, I told him that I had been praying all night, he told me that he had too.
Prayers were answered and I haven’t had any trouble with my throat since that day. It was ten years ago, and I try everyday to take one big breath and thank my Heavenly Father for that ability.
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