The Swallows Australian Edition Magazine

My Story
- Brad Walker
“Will I die?”
“Possibly” the Surgeon replied. “We won’t
know if its spread until we do some fairly
invasive surgery.”
I had mouth cancer.
I’m sitting opposite my surgeon, Jonathan
Clark at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse. He is
explaining the invasive surgery I’m about to
endure.
They will cut the golf ball size tumour from my
mouth. That will need to be plugged with a golf
ball size piece of flesh they will cut from my
wrist. They will also need to connect that up
with the blood supply system in my mouth, so
by the way, we’ll be cutting you up to your
elbow to take the artery as well. Next we will
need to see if the cancer has spread, so the
next part of the operation will be to cut you
from ear to ear while we remove 20 lymph
nodes from each side of your neck. As we
expect your tongue to swell, we will probably
need to insert a Tracheostomy. And last but not
least, is cover the hole in your wrist with some
plastic surgery.
Wow, was all I could think. I’m in for one
miserable time.
AND, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
For me it was a walk in the park. Well, sort of.
I’m not making light of my situation, but what I
had envisaged in my minds-eye was so far
from reality.
So what was my reality?
Did they cut it all out? – yes.
Were there any signs in my lymph nodes? – no.
Did I endure unimaginable pain? – no. My pain
relief was only Panadol, I kid you not.
Were there any side effects? – yeah a few.
Were they serious? – No I don’t think so.
What were they?
I had a fair amount of swelling in my neck
which made sleeping in bed difficult (I’m a side
sleeper), so for the next 8 weeks after release
from Hospital I slept in a reclining chair. No
great hardship. I still have a little Lymphedema,
but Jonathon says it’s not to be unexpected as
they did cut me ear to ear and would have
damaged channels the lymph nodes use to
funnel fluid away. Again, no biggie. I need to
massage the fluid that has built up in my neck
up towards my ears where another set of
lymph modes moves the fluid on. A slow
process, but it’s getting there. I’m confident it
will be gone in a few more months.
I have a bit of a speech impediment. This was
of concern to me as I’m a trainer. 8 days after
release from hospital I did my first training
session. My customers had no problems
understanding me although my speech was
quite thick. To me it sounded like I was pretty
drunk. As I write this now, 8 months after my
operation, the only one aware of my speech
impediment is me. So, no great hardship with
that.
A catheter left me with what is known as a “lazy
bladder”. Of a night I needed to visit the
bathroom every 20 minutes or so. That
concerned me a little and I bought it up with
Jonathon on my next visit. He assured me it
would be a temporary problem, he was spot
on and now I’m back to normal.
All in all, considering what has been done to
my body, I’ve come thru this pretty well.
This has been my story.
My story could be your story – AND……….
I hope it is.
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