N3il's Blog

All has been pretty quiet on the operation front since my canceled operation in December. But I have had 2 appointments with 2 of my consultants last week.

The first last Wednesday was with Dr Mary Lei my oncologist consultant, and she was very happy with my progress and said I have made a remarkable recovery and now doesn’t want to see me for another 12 months. This was great news to hear.

Then last Friday I met with Mr Richard Oakley who is the neck and neck cancer consultant, after having to wait for 2 hours I caught up with him. First of all he commented that I was looking remarkably well considering all I have been through in the last year and he said not many people had had one of their carotid arteries removed and he was very happy with my progress to date and he doesn’t want to see me for another 6 months, especially as I’m still under another consultant Mr Rubert Obholzer who is the base of skull surgeon, who is going to sort out my next operations.

So I finished last week feeling pretty good. I’ve now come into this week with work being pretty quiet and then yesterday evening I had a call from Guy hospital, saying that they had had a cancellation this Thursday and was I available to come in and have the operations I was due in December to help improve my voice and to add a screw anchor in my skull to attached a bone anchored hearing aid. Both of which I really need to help me communicate and hear better. I would be able to get the Baha hearing aid fitted for 4-6 weeks and we have to wait for the anchor to heal and for the skin to grow ago the screw, but hopefully, the vocal operation should make a different fair quick after the operation.

I did say yes I’m happy to go ahead and this actually fits in very well, as I am quiet work-wise they have confirmed this morning and they said this should hopefully be a day case and so I should be out the same day. So watch this space for an update later in the week.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support and hopefully this will me another big step forward. I do find the weak and quiet voice a real frustration, so please pray that this op especially is successful.

Thanks Neil

Dan my son travelled up with me this morning to Guys for 7am for my 2 small operations. The first operation was to attach a titanium screw to my skull behind my left ear, so that a bone anchored hearing aid can be attached and the second operation was to help improve the strength of my voice.

Unfortunately over the last couple of days I had started to develop a cough and this morning I had a bit of a temperture was starting to feel a bit rough. Sue and Sophy had both been unwell last week and it seems most of kids in Sue’s school have as well. So I was going to be the first one in the theatre and I got changed ready and then when they took my temperature this morning my temperature had increased. The doctors then decided as they would be doing things on my throat it wouldn’t be advisable to go ahead with the operation as it would increase the possibility of further complications. So the operation was postponed and we then was back at home by 9am.

So after being disappointed that I wouldn’t be getting a stronger voice for Christmas, I also realised I wasn’t up to the operation today and have just come home a slept since. The operation should be rescheduled for sometime in January.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support.

We’re now on the last day of Movember and I’m just posting this blog to let you all know how we have got on.

As a team our aim for 3 of us was to raise £500, in the end much to our surprise and amazement we have raised £930 for Movember and through the generously of so many friends I have individually raised £677. So I want to say a very big thank you to Simon Stewart and Andrew Glanville for joining the Band of Brothers team and also very, very big thank you for all the support, encouragement and sponsorship we team has received. Thank you.

Last Friday, the 21st November was a years aniversary since I had my first major operation on my neck and although its been a very tough year I can look back a year on and be thankful to God and the great medical team that I’ve been under that I am still around to enjoy life and enjoy being with my great family and friends who have supported me through this year. It’s often be all these people who have encouraged me and supported me both practically, physically and spiritually along the way who have made the journey easier. So a year on I want to thank you all.

Further news to my last post. I had a call on Tuesday whilst waiting for the train coming home from London. It was one of my consultants rang me and said, “Hi it’s Rupert here (First name terms) we’ve been trying to get you sorted and to get your voice back before Christmas and we have a date, the 18 December, the only issue is that I’m away, but one of my colleagues who’s very good can do it, so do you still want to go ahead?”

My response was YES, very happy to go ahead, as they are just 2 smaller operations and it will also mean that hopefully I will have a better voice for Christmas. So the op is now booked for Thursday the 18 December. The 2 operations are both fairly quick and I could be out on the same day or at the latest the next day, so I’m happy with this news and can then enjoy Christmas hopefully having stronger voice in all the chaos!

As you can see from my current photo I’m still growing my Movember moustache and this is also to remind you that it’s still not too late to sponsor me, you can use this link below to get to my Mo space http://mobro.co/neiljeremy1 . So far I have raised £157 and our team of 3 has raised a total of £390 between us, but it would be great if we could reach £500 for the team by the end of the month.

Thanks again for all your love, prayers and support throughout this year. Neil

Today I had another appointment at Guys with Mr Obholzer one of the top consultants looking after me and today was about finding out whether I was going to have another operation to remove the small trace of tumour that had shown up showed up on one of the scans in August.