Hey y’all! I know it’s been a long time since I was active (I believe I posted my update to my January right-sided styloidectomy in March). Some of you might’ve noticed me commenting on other posts in the last several days — I am trying to be somewhat active here, again.
I know that many of you are invested in my journey with Eagles’s as much as I am yours. That’s why I wanted to be sure to let you know that my second (left-sided) surgery is scheduled for August 2.
It will be pretty much the same deal as my first! I will drive to Durham from the coast on August 1 and pick up my mom from the airport, and then we will check into the same hotel we stayed in last time. We will go to the hospital in Chapel Hill on the 2nd for surgery and I will stay for probably one night for pain management. Then, my mom and I will return to our hotel for the first week postop. She will fly home after that week and then one of my two siblings that live together in Durham will come home with me to the coast for the second week. I am taking those two weeks off of work.
I will update when there are updates to be given!
I am very much looking forward to getting this over with. I have seen quite a bit of improvement on my right side, though I am still dealing with some troublesome symptoms. If I can see the same level of improvement, minimum, on my left side, I will be very pleased. I hope everyone is doing well!
Thanks for the update! It’s great to have your input again, but don’t worry if you need to prioritise your own health & can’t be that active on here
So pleased that you have seen some improvement in symptoms after your first surgery, that’s great news. Some members have found both sides need removing before symptoms improve even more on the first side, so you might find that this happens for you…Great that you’re able to get the second side done in August, will of course pray that this surgery is even more successful
I must say that my right side (the side I had done already) has definitely been having worsening symptoms/more flareups of painful days and the old, familiar symptoms since about mid-April. It seemed to come out of nowhere – I had been healing pretty steadily in the months since surgery with a short-lived, painful flareup here and there, but nothing too serious. Suddenly, around the second week of April, my surgical sites got all inflamed/visibly swollen (externally), tight (internally) and so on. Granted, I was traveling.
I used to drive to Ohio from NC frequently (9ish hours from where I am on the coast to the small Ohio town my mom and some other family still lives in). I planned a two week trip to stay with mom. The original plan was to stay with my brothers in RDU for one night on the way up + drive the remaining six hours on day 2. Instead, I had to stay with my brothers for a night + stop at a hotel in VA for a night + drive the remaining 4 hours on day 3 (so no more than 3.5ish hours driving each day). Then, I had to do the same (in reverse) on the way home (3 days to get where I was going on both ends of the trip instead of 9 hours on both ends of the trip). That was a HUGE bummer, realizing how much my body can NOT handle now and how much I have to put into a relatively short roadtrip.
Anyway – I got to my mom’s several days later than planned and stayed with her several days less than intended, but still spent about a week and a half at her house. I took the entire first week off work and worked from her place the second week. By the end of that second week my neck, face jaw, ear, shoulder, upper back and chest etc. were all SO painful, and don’t even get me started on my skull/scalp/nerves in that entire area. Ugh.
We shall def see how things improve once I have gotten through the initial recovery period for my left sided styloidectomy. I am very hopeful but won’t allow myself to get too hopeful, of course. How have you been???
That’s rough when things have been going well and then suddenly you have a set back Maybe you had just overdone things a bit…One of the doctors who authored a research paper described the styloids, ligaments and hyoid as like a chain, attached at both ends, so it makes sense if one side is disrupted by having the styloid removed it can put the whole chain out of balance, and I guess if you’ve got inflammation from the side which is still in, that will aggravate everything. Driving is very testing for the neck & shoulders at the best of times…
