After having surgery on the 30th to place two drains in my tumor, I was very happy to be so comfortable two weeks later (Monday and Tuesday) that I didn’t need to use pain medication anymore. But on Wednesday (the day before yesterday), I had what I thought would be a routine post‐surgical follow‐up visit and the x‐ray revealed that the checkmark‐shaped ✓ drain had radically shifted position and needed to be removed, so it was more needles, more cutting and more swelling for me as my surgeon had to make an incision while I was under local anesthesia in order to fish out the drain. So now I’m back on pain medication and back on a soft diet and swollen enough that I’m having some difficulty chewing because it’s hard to bring my upper molars in contact with my lower ones. But as Near Eastern peoples say, “This too shall pass,” and I should be fine soon enough. Plus, I count myself lucky to have such a handsome and personable oral surgeon.
(This x‐ray image is from the 30th, when both the checkmark‐shaped drain and the straighter one were still in place.)