10th day post op exam / discussion with my dr

Dr. Steven Parnes (Albany, NY ~ at Albany Medical Hospital) told me the surgery went very well and that he felt everything was healing nicely.
I told him my experience could have been avoided had he communicated with me prior to surgery how he wanted me to deal with the pain / swelling. And he heard me and apologized. I thanked him and told him I really wanted to help his patients going forward so that hopefully no one else would experience what I did.
I asked him how much longer he thought my recovery would take ~ swelling to be gone and the weird lumpy tissue at the side of my throat and he said about a week or so. Hopefully this will be the case. He told me I don’t need to return to see him unless I have any other problems.
I felt so much better having had an opportunity to express my disappointment in how my post surgery care went down especially because I really feel he heard me.
The other test he did (D.I.S.E. drug induced sleep endoscopy) to see if my tongue was the cause of my obstructive sleep apnea ~ with the hope of a future surgery to correct it so I could be off my apnea machine showed I was not a candidate because my tongue isn’t the cause. Naturally what happens to cause my obstruction is not ‘common’ LOL. If it’s “odd” then it’s “me” LOL.

2 Likes

How nice that Dr. Parnes received your criticism graciously, ESx2. I’m glad you were heard & I hope he is compelled to do better in the future. Perhaps your situation was an isolated case. That would be the best scenario.

Honestly, I think he’s being a bit optimistic about healing time (not unusual) as we normally see it takes a month+ for swelling & more normal throat & neck function, but we’ll hope you’re on the quick end of healing & his prediction is correct.

Glad that he listened to you, & hope that it helps others in future!
Hope you do heal quickly, but I do agree with Isaiah that he was a little optimistic- we do find that the majority of doctors are like that!