Intubation injury

So this is probably the craziest thing to happen to me. I had my lumpectomy and SLNB yesterday. It went really well. She took out 3 nodes and they were all negative!! She also said that she hardly had to remove any breast tissue as chemo destroyed it and she thinks I’ll get PCR. Yay!

Anyway, my throat hurt when I woke up. That was the first thing I said. They said it was normal with intubation, which made sense. I went to recovery and then sent on my merry way. My husband and I were driving home from Manhattan, and I kept mentioning how my throat felt scratched or something. I pulled down the visor mirror and when I opened my mouth, I noticed a giant HOLE on my tonsil. I called the after hours number and tried to explain what happened. They were kinda dismissive about it, but when I sent a picture to the portal, my surgeon called me. She wanted me to go back to Manhattan to be evaluated by an ENT. I was in tears at this point, as we had just got home from 1.5 hours of traffic. We were literally picking up our toddler from grandmas house and didn’t know what to do.

Ultimately we decided to go back because I was eating crackers(!!!) in recovery and was terrified of an infection. We got to the MSK urgent care at 8pm, and we left at midnight with 2 stitches in my tonsil and a script of antibiotics. Now not only do I have to recover from two procedures and adhere to a liquid diet, but I also feel like I have strings hanging in my throat that won’t dissolve for a week. I am extremely upset and shocked that this was missed by the doctors. Even my care notes said the intubation was “atraumatic.” Well, clearly they didn’t even look!! This could have been addressed at the hospital.

I was and am still at a loss for words. I didn’t know this was a possibility, and the ENT said she gets one patient a year that this happens to. So lucky me! As if getting breast cancer at 36 wasn’t enough.

Here is the picture for all that are interested. It’s pretty disgusting so just a fair warning to anyone squeamish.

https://imgur.com/a/FC7tAd9