Yes I got it! But I figured I would just reply to the thread
So today I had my follow up exam. I will start out saying that everything is healing PERFECTLY! All of my worries were in vain.. Which is what I was hoping would be the case!!
A pic of me n Sheli in the waiting room at Yeson. You can see the excitement on my face because at this point I am still under the impression that I will be able to start saying a few words today
I was taken back and given a few sheets of paper that explained the "vocal program" I will begin doing after two months when everything is 100% healed. It will develop my range and give me the voice of my dreams! I have to wait a while before starting the training though.
Then I met with Dr Kim and asked him a whole SLEW of questions by typing into my iPhone and showing it to him. It's how I've been communicating with Sheli too, so I've gotten pretty fast with it
he understands English perfectly, too, by the way. So awesome.
Then Dr Kim did the usual process to prep me for the laryngoscope which is not too pleasant but not horrible. He basically blows some air down your nostrils followed by some kind of cleaning stuff that probably dries everything up, then vacuums it all out, then blows it all out again. It makes me tear up every time! But it's not bad.
Anyway this was the moment I had been waiting for alllll week.. To know if everything was healing well. Sure enough he had a smile on his face and took some photos while he was down there. In a moment he was done and I was looking at my newly transformed vocal folds on the monitor. Yay!!!! No problems!!
Here is a pic of my vocal chords before. You can see that the left one is thicker, which was causing my vocal tremor.
And here is a pic of my vocal chords today
the blue line is the sutured area, and the green lines represent where the new vibrating area of the folds will develop as I recover. You can see that about an entire HALF has been tied off. He corrected the asymmetry as well.
And now for some pre-op vocal analysis data. The first one is my regular "male" voice- just talking how my genetics wanted me to. The second is my attempt at the feminine voice, which sadly was very out of practice the day I had the exam. I suffered from my usual feeling of being "on the spot" and failed miserably at getting the average pitch up to where it should be.
As you can see, my regular guy voice was around 140hz, which is actually on the high range of male voices (100-150hz). My attempted female voice was a mere 20hz higher, but it is also a voice I am very comfortable with.
So, this surgery should add 75hz to everything. That means comfortably, I will be somewhere around 215hz.. and with motivation I will easily be able to go up to 235hz. Both are great and well within the highly acceptable female range 200-250hz.
Dr Kim told me I should wait another week befor saying anything. Not because I'm not healing well (he said I'm healing VERY well) but because the Botox will make it harder to talk and I don't want to strain or try to push more air. In 7 more days, I can actually start saying "yes" and "no" to stuff for sure. At this point I feel like I have patience of steel.. It doesn't sound too bad... I think I actually kind of like not talking and becoming more accustomed to using hand gestures and facial expressions to communicate has been great
My flight is in the morning, and of course I've binged a little on shopping... Here I am trying on the outfit I decided to wear on the plane... LOL. So classy, right
The leggings have velvet embellishments and the jacket is glammed up with a studded collar. I'm going to look ridiculous, but I don't care. I feel like a million dollars after today. And "Trill It"? Lol.. ya gotta be kidding me. I had to get this shirt, it was way too LA for me to pass up. Also it has a zipper going all the way down the back which I thought was pretty cool.
