When I was pregnant with Charlotte I noticed that I had a small lump under my right ear. I had been sick, and I thought that it was a swollen lymph node. I showed my Dr. who agreed and said that they sometimes stay swollen for a very long time. Not to worry.
Over the years I asked different doctors and everyone said the same thing. I also had 3 babies in the mean time and all of my blood work was always normal so there was nothing really to worry about. But it always bothered me, especially because it was slowly getting bigger.
Then in January I switched to a new Dr. (The first non OB-GYN I've seen actually) and she was much more worried about it.
I ended up having an ultrasound and a biopsy and in the end was referred to an ENT who diagnosed it as a benign tumor on my parotid gland and I was scheduled for a partial parotidectomy. The surgery was a bit complicated because the parotid gland is right on the facial nerve, so there was the chance that my facial nerve could be damaged.
My surgeon did a fantastic job though and she didn't damage my nerve at all! I did loose feeling in all but the very top of my right ear, but from the research I did I knew that it would most likely happen.
Nick was out of town for training when I had my surgery, so Ali and Christian came to our house and stayed with the kids and my mom came with me to the hospital.
Here are some before pictures .
Here I am coming out of surgery. The surgery was about 2 hours long. All I remember from waking up is feeling like I had the worst ear infection of my life, then checking my face to make sure I still had control of it, then immediately throwing up and falling back asleep.
About 12 hours after surgery my nausea went away and I felt so much better. I was finally able to think about eating something and that made all the difference!
This is one day after surgery
And here is one week after, right before the stitches came out.
Nick came home
one week later, so I stayed at my mom's house and let her take care of
me, while Ali and Christian took care of my kids.Overall the whole thing really wasn't bad. I only needed pain medication for about a week, and I have a wonderful family who took care of me and my kids while Nick couldn't.
