Changing Voice

June 2008, 6 months after Allen's injury, he went in to have surgery to help his sleep apnea.  They ended up taking out his tonsils, uvula, as well as sinus surgery and repairing a deviated septum.  The ENT was confident that this would fix his sleep apnea.  Allen was excited to have his tonsils out because they were huge and were always getting stuff stuck in them.  

The reason I write about this out patient surgery is that it ended up affecting me a great deal emotionally.  I never thought this this fairly simple surgery would have such a profound effect on me!  I knew it was going to be rough for him, as a tonsillectomy at age 40 is extremely painful for anyone!  However, I was shocked by the feelings that bombarded me after surgery.

You see, the one thing that had not changed in my husband since his injury was his voice.  Every other part of him was different.  He even looked different due to a large weight gain from medication he was put on to help control his seizures and others for his PTSD.  At first, I thought that eventually his voice would return to normal, but it never did.  I guess it had such an impact on me because that was the one piece of him I clung to, in a way.  It was a part of him that made me know that when everything else was different, at least I could still listen to his voice and know that he was in there.  I felt rather silly, but I think I actually mourned this loss to some degree.  I had to let it go and know that everything would be alright, even if the last thing that hadn't changed, had finally changed too.  

Today I realize that this surgery was life changing for me.  I no longer could count on listening to his voice when things were rough to draw comfort and strength from that part of him.  Now I have come to accept that really this was just a metaphor for life.  Nothing ever stays the same forever, but we have to accept change and keep moving forward!  

Even Now..........Gina