I received a copy of my surgery report. It seems that I have the distinction of having a "...convenient neck crease...". After all these years, who knew? I could have been the most famous neck model in the world (or at least in San Berdoo). I mean, my own fashion line of neck wear, possibly an ascot, a turtleneck, a "dickie" maybe. Wow, all that time spent going to school and come to find out that I have a convenient neck crease!
I continue to be sore around the incision and feel some "numbness" similar to what you feel when the dentist numbs your tooth with novacaine. Apparently my twelfth cranial nerve and the adjacent vagua nerve must have been disturbed but preserved and I am thinking that the spinal nerve also had to identified and avoided, although I am sure that it was also disturbed somewhat. What I am really feeling is the actual "pain in the neck" when I turn to fast because according to the Doctor, will take a while to return to normal.
There is that word again, normal. Two syllables. Easy to pronounce. The average or mean; free from any mental disorder; usual, not abnormal. Is that what I want to get back to? Do I want to be normal? Was I ever normal before? Do I want to go back to my normal or to another normal? Are any of us really normal? After that, it's not so easy to pronounce anymore.
All I know is that things are different. I am different. Obviously different in the physical sense but also different because I have started to ask the question of "why me?". Statistically speaking, my type of head and neck cancer accounts for about 3% of all cancers and I have the distinction of having an "un-known primary", which occurs in only about 5% to 10% of folks in that first group.
With that said, I now proudly state that I am a part of a group of folks that are quite unique, some would say maybe not unique but rather a bit "abnormal" (those of you that know me already knew that I really wasn't quite normal). And you know what, I am proud of it. So it is no longer a question of "why me?"; but rather one of where are the others that are like me?