N3il's Blog

Blog Update 13 August 2015

It’s now nearly 6 weeks since my last small operation, which I didn’t really explain about much in my last blog post. So I’ll just briefly explain. In Feburary’s operation which was to attached an titanium abutment into my skull to create a fixing point on my head for a BAHA (bone attached hearing aid) hearing aid. I also had an injection into my left vocal cord to hopefully improve the volume of my voice, as my voice has been pretty quiet since all my operations and treatments last year, as a nerve was cut in one of the operations meaning I have lost the use of a number of neck and throat muscles which controlled my voice and my swallowing, which in turn means only one of my two vocal cords now moves, leaving a gap, which in turn didn’t give me enough breath to talk very loudly at all.

The February operation went a long way to improving my voice, but the speech therapist felt it could be improved further, so this is what the last operation was about and I can say that after I had rested my voice for 48 hours, there was an improvement again. I’m still not back to a normal level of volume, but this now is as good as it gets and I’m happy as I now have enough breath to even sing, a bit, but it’s not quite the angelic tones I was able to output to years ago, but far better than it’s been.

Life is now at a new normal and as good as it gets. Work has been a bit quiet in July and we’ve had a 2 week family holiday at the end of July and first week of August. Our first week was our 11th year camping at New Wine christian summer conference at the Royal Bath and West Showground at Shepton Mallet, Somerset, camping with 12,000 other people and churches. The weather wasn’t great with heavy rain meaning we started off the week pretty wet! But the weather didn’t spoil our week and we had great fun with lots of old and new friends. Our 3 kids spent the week working in on the youth teams looking after groups on 16-18 7-8 years olds. So although they had a busy week they loved every minute of it.

Our second week was far more luxurious one, as we drove on to St Brides, Pembrokeshire in south Wales to stay with another family the Heaths, in a very nice cottage. Again the weather was mixed but that didn’t stop us having a great week.

Now we’re backing and getting use to normal life again. The kids are off again next week to Soul Survivor. Dan then has a further 2 holidays before his back down to Southampton at the end of September for his second year at uni.

Sue and the girls return to school at the start of September and work wise, I am then booked from the beginning of September for a potentially extended contract in a well know global brands in-house design apartment. Which I’m looking forward to.

That’s our news for now and hopefully we looking forward to a fairly non-eventful autumn. Thanks again for all your love, prayers and support.

Neil

Hi guys. this is not a new blog posting, it’s just my blog site has been down and out of action for a couple of weeks. But it’s has now been restored from my last back up in May, which didn’t have this last post from July on it, so it’s all old News, not new News, is just I’ve re-published this last blog post again to keep the blog site up to date. I will give you all the latest update soon.

Thanks Neil
August 2015

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Just to give you all a quick up date on todays events.

I arrived at Guys Hospital at London Bridge at 9am, but didn’t get into theatre till 1.30pm, so a long wait! But was only in Theatre about 30 mins and I was back on the ward by 3.30pm.

Everything went well and feeling good, but I’m now of a forced & strict NO TALKING routine for the next 48 hours. So not allow to speak, much to my families relief. I’m not really going to know how successfully this current operation has been until Sunday onwards. So watch this space to hear my voice!

My friend Pete Doorey came up to the ward just as I arrived on it and stayed till there till they let me home at 7.30pm. Fortunately London bridge station is only 5 mins walk from the ward and the fast train was only 18 minutes to Orpington and my lovely wife then picked us up from the station.

So I’m now home and feeling pretty good and have now adopted a new way of communicating with everyone! My mac has the ability to convert type into speech, so I type what I want to say and the computer speaks it out loud! This is fun and I can speak in many different voices and accents. Sue is already sick on my new voice!!! But I’m enjoying my new computer voice as it’s far better than my pre op voice, as I’ve been so use to have such a quiet and weak voice and I’m hoping, come Sunday the strength and volume of my voice will be improved! Watch this space as I might even record a message with my new voice in a blog to everyone!

Thanks again for your prayers and support today!