Okay, full update time! First of all, sorry to leave everyone hanging, but it has been an extremely busy few days and this is the first real downtime I have had. I left early Monday afternoon and got here late Tuesday evening. The original plan was to arrive by around 6PM, but my connecting flight was delayed and I didn't actually get here until after 9PM. Then there was a long taxi ride, getting settled, and by the time all was said and done my brother and I got to bed by about midnight.
Then on Wednesday it was my pre-op appointment. There was some free time in the morning, but since we both wanted to sleep in, we pretty much went to the pre-op first thing. They had me do a ton of different tests, one of which was really difficult for me to do since I couldn't stop gagging, and after that I was able to talk to Dr. Kim. He told me that the tests showed, among other things, that I had an extremely bad vocal tremor and that I am using my voice something like 13 times harder that normal to compensate for it. This didn't really surprise me, since I knew I always pushed my voice extremely hard, and that it made me highly suceptable to vocal strain. So no surprise, he said I needed Botox, and that I will probably even need a follow up Botox injection in six months. He also thinks I should follow up with a voice therapist to help unlearn all the bad habits I have accumulated using my trained voice over the years. Overall, I was just extremely impressed with the whole process, and how knollegabable and intelligent Dr. Kim was, and it really made me feel validated about my descision to come here.
After the pre-op, my brother and I decided to get dinner at a Japanese resturaunt near the hotel, as a sort of celebratory dinner/last meal. The menu was only in Japanese/Korean (and unfortunately my kanji skills are still a bit lacking, but our server spoke English and helped us order. It was pricy, but wow, it was the best sashimi I have ever had! I guess the standards here are just different, because I've had sashimi tons of times in the US before, so it's not like I'm new to eating it. The sake was great too, even though I ordered one of the less expensive bottles (well, relatively at least).
After dinner, I wanted to to to get to a Korean arcade, but it was getting late, and our original plan of taking the bus didn't seem like a good idea, so we had to figure out how to get a taxi. I was going to use uber, but it quickly became apparent this was not a cost-effective option in Korea, so we had to figure out the Korean Taxi app Kakao Taxi. With an online guide, it wasn't too difficult, but then most Korean Taxi drivers don't speak a word of English, so I had to show them on the map where we wanted to go. In general, there really don't seem to be a lot of people here who speak very much English unfortunately, so communication is always a problem.
We only had time for a few hours at the arcade, and unfortunately I had a bit of trouble getting used to the controls. For pop'n music the buttons had a very different feel than my arcade controller at home, which would probably take a few days to get used to. For Tekken, they don't use Sanwa sticks, but instead use Happ sticks, which I am not used to at all. So basically, a lot of the time I just couldn't do the move I meant to. Nothing a little practice couldn't fix, but again, it takes time. After the arcade it was back to the hotel for sleep, because surgery check-in was at 8AM the next day.
In the morning we again woke up, got ready, and headed to Yeson. We are staying at the Princess Hotel incidentally, which is less than 10 minutes away from Yeson on foot, so travel there and back was very convenient. Due to the effects of anesthesia my memory of the morning is a little hazy, but basically I remember I put on scrubs, then they gave me an IV, and they wheeled me into the surgery room, and a few minutes later I was out. After waking up, they kept me in a side room to recover. For lunch I had mushroom soup, which was probably the best "hospital" food I have ever eaten. Incidentally, they did say solid food shouldn't be a problem from this evening on, which makes sense since the surgery wasn't in the esophagus, but it was something I was concerned about, so it was good to know. After resting for a number of hours with my brother, I was called out to meet Dr. Kim again. He showed me some pictures of the surgery (which apparently only lasted and hour) and went over some post-op stuff. Incidentally, he expects my final post-op pitch should settle at around 230Hz, so well within the female range. I am certainly not complaining.
Although personally I think he might have overestimated my base pitch a little due to my inability to produce my natural pitch on command, so I think 220Hz might be more like it (which is still incredible). After meeting with Doctor Kim, I went back to the room, went over my medication instructions, walked around a little, and then after the IV finished I was able to go.
For dinner, my brother and I both bought buckets of ice cream at a convenience store. I got green tea ice cream, and he got berry flavored. Then he went to bed early because he is pretty jet lagged and this trip has been pretty exhausting for him. That first day of travel was probabably the longest day of his life. Personally I've had worse, but it was still a grueling experience. I really am glad to have him with me though, this would have been so much harder to do on my own, and not very much fun either...
So, that is the story up until now. One thing I am happy to report, is that even though my throat is feeling a bit sore, I am otherwise feeling pretty normal, and I don't think I will have to miss out on too much fun while I'm recovering. I still plan to take it easy tomorrow just to be safe, but after that, I should be able to do pretty much anything that doesn't recquire talking. The not talking part really is going to be the hard part, but I'll manage somehow. I guess thats pretty much everything. I probably won't do any update posts in the next few days unless something noteworthy happens, but if anyone has any questions, let me know and I would be happy to try and answer them.
