Well I'm not through the thick of it yet. These first 7 days of recovery are crucial to the outcome. I am concentrating so hard on not coughing.
I have been carrying water around Seoul with me because occasionally I'll get hit with a blast of who knows what and it makes me wanna cough!! If I do cough it could undo the main suture holding the tied portion of the vocal folds together. It needs 7 days to have a full heal.
Today I did have a moment where I forgot I couldn't talk.. My friend who is a designer was walking in front of me, and we were passing a design company who had misspelled the word "portfolio" on their sign out front
they had spelled it "portpolio" lol... Anyway I tried to say "hey!" to my friend ahead of me and then a hoarse sound came out.. I was startled by it! It was definitely higher than I was expecting. It was kind of exciting to be shocked, but I realized I have to be even more careful. If I would actually try to yell something it would almost for sure screw something up being only 60 or so hours post-op.
Either way, I kinda like not talking. It's rather relaxing. I've been typing to my friend a lot on the iPhone and becoming much more familiar with hand gestures. Today it started to hit me that I will never hear my old voice ever again... And I could do nothing but smile from the inside out