July 6th, 1999
Soon I'm so used to this flying business that I should be able to fly the plane myself. The flight that was going to be leaving Luleå at five past 9 am was proponed to 1.30 PM instead. The Ambulance plane crew had an emergency during the night so they had to have their 8 hours rest before their next flight. Apparently it was their second night they had to get up from bed to fly away and pick up someone very sick to transport them to hospital.

The arrival in Göteborg was pretty eventless; I was given the children's ward room again. I wonder if it's because I'm so childish or if it's the only room that's not crowded during the summer. They usually give people with trachea their own room so they don't disturb others when they have to suck and clean the tube. I'm not complaining anyway even though the've removed all the toys *giggles*

Operation day, July 7th, 1999
Early in the morning (I really like having the ENT clinic boss as my doctor) I was wheeled down to the operating theater. I had brought my mascot Rutger Tartan and his new friend Lillknorpe so that my mom could help me take some pictures of how it looks like in the operating theater for Rutger's homepage. The staff thought it was a great idea after I told them about the homepage I'm doing for kids with RRP (Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis).

I think the bears have a great influence on kids because in the pre-op room a little girl (3 years old) didn't want to take her sleepy medicine but I managed to distract her so much with my bears that she willingly took her medicine even if it tasted awful. The girl's mom and the girl sat on my bed talking to Rutger and Lillknorpe while she got more and more drowsy. Her mom was very thankful that I could take away some of the nervosity for the little girl by making her smile and relax.

My own operation was pretty simple. The doctor removed just one big papilloma from the left vocal cord. Apparently the papilloma growing on the right side - which he was going to remove today - was gone. The doctor said that it can happen some times, that if you leave the papilloma alone (if it's not life threatening) the papilloma can disappear which did happen in this case. I think this is a great time to start the Indolplex treatment when the papilloma is indecisive about how they want to grow.

In the afternoon when I had become more awake my doctor wanted to examine my speech, which he can't do while I'm sleeping on the operation table. He wanted to see how the vocal cord moves to see if they could put in a smaller trachea tube or not. Unfortunately the vocal cords didn't open up as wide as we had hoped for, instead they just open up halfway so they block my breathing a bit too much.

The doctor wants me to meet the phonetician (hope tha's a word you all understand - it means a doctor specialized in speech functions) who will determine if the vocal cord movements is good enough for a stable voice and what would happen if my doctor tries to open up the opening more, so more air can flow through the vocal cords.

July 8th, 1999
Instead of going home today I had an appointment with the phonetician, a very nice gentleman who examined my vocal cords. He was amazed that I had so much voice after all the operations in the past, and especially because of the stenosis. But he could see real vibrations even though one side was a bit stiffer than the other side. He also explained to me that they can do a few things to make the vocal cords open up wider than now. Either by breaking apart the cartilage that has developed during the years and prohibits the vocal cords to open up properly or to tie up the vocal cords a bit.

The plan is to try to break apart the cartilage tomorrow morning. A very simple and painless operation, according to my doctor. What they do is to put down a tube down my throat and blow up a balloon so much that the cartilage breaks up and lets the vocal cords open up more widely. This is an operation they do on people with rheumatism since they get affected by lots of cartilage in all their joints, including their vocal cords. I have one advantage though, there is less risk I get the cartilage back since I'm not suffering from rheumatism and the doctors will keep an eye on the stenosis so it won't occur again.

So all I can do today is to wait and enjoy myself as much as I can with my computer (probably listening to music, playing games and fix the update on this page). More to come....

Operation day, July 9th, 1999
I think I waited longer for the anesthesian to show up in the operating theater than for the time the whole operation took. It was a quick thing where the doctor did put down a cuffed tube and did blow it up so much that it did break apart the cartilage. Unfortunately it seems like a nerve is damaged so that the "explosion" surgery didn't do much.

The damaged nerve makes it harder for the vocal cords to open up fully so that I can get 100% airflow between them. The damage is apparently an old damage that has been more or less unnoticed for a long time. But since it blocks part of the airflow my doctor has decided we should fix it.

I'm going to come back to Göteborg in about two months, then if there's still bad movement in the left vocal cord the doctor will tie up the vocal cord a bit so that it keeps the opening up a bit. It will affect the voice, but with speech training I think it's possible to maintain a good voice. After all, I rather breathe better than being able to apply to the National Opera Scene as their new soprano.

Now I'm hoping I'll get a ride home tomorrow in the ambulance plane, although it's little hope since they only fly with one plane during the weekends and they need the plane for emergency flights. So I might have to stay in Göteborg during the weekend. At least it's sunny and warm here, and not raining as it did for three weeks, before I came here.