Yeson VFS Experience - Day 3 of 3
Checkup day, Botox, and recovery instructions.
Daily writing at inkhaven, day 10/30
I woke up the next day, and was feeling feeling fine. Checkup was not until 3pm, so had some time to spend.
I had some food back at my hotel. I then took my first set of medications in the morning:
Here is a transcription of the medicines that we were given yesterday:
before breakfast and dinner (2x per day):
rabeprazole 20mg (30min before breakfast and dinner)
after each breakfast, lunch, and dinner (3x per day):
synatura syrup (expectorant)
cough s syrup (expectorant)
aldosten tab (expectorant)
mucosol tab (expectorant)
cefactlor hydrate tab (expectorant)
rebastat tab (digestion)
lenox tab (antipyretic analgesiac)
After eating and getting ready, I walked around with my girlfriend.
We got a taxi to get some lunch somewhere, saw some of the things near Seoul Tower. We went to a very cute tea house that is supposedly booked out most of the time, but which was free when we happened to shop up. After our time was up, we then got some cake. Then went to Yeson for the checkup.
We arrived when we were supposed to, and sat in the reception but the waiting time was pretty short.
I went and saw Dr. Kim again. He looked at my vocal cords and said they look fine still, and took another pic of my vocal folds.
We then went out and waited for the next thing, which was the Botox.
The reason the Botox is given, is not only to prevent me from using my vocal folds, but to unlearn the neural connections I had for my old voice. My vocal folds have changed a lot, so I need to re-learn new patterns, which is easier if the old patterns are unlearned this way.
I went in to get Botox.
I sat on the seat, he cleaned my neck with alcohol wipe, put something on my neck (like some microphone I guess).
He took a syringe and needle into vial of Botox, and took it the botox, and inserted the needle into my neck. As he put the needle in, there was some static noise being played, which I guess was trying to measure when the needle is in the right part of the vocal folds or something. Then injected, and pull it out.
He then injected the same into my other vocal fold too, on the other side of my Adam’s Apple.
All was good. It was slightly painful, but like pretty fine. It moreso feels strange to get injected in the neck.
There was some reminder that the botox is likely to wear off in 3-4 months, so if i start getting a horse voice with tremors around that time then it’s likely that, and it’s possible to get a top-up botox after that wherever I live, and told me he would prescribe me something just in case it happens.
I also asked:
Can I use sauna or hot spring ♨️? Can I swim? Or should I wait?
no sauna or hot spring for 1 week. (i think?) No swimming for 1 month
I waited a bit more. I saw the other person who got surgery. Supposedly their throat was still painful and they couldn’t consume anything other than water yet. So perhaps it could be.
I then waited a bit in the room again, and next was the therapy vocal exercises explanation.
My guide then handed me a bag with a notebook of all of the documents that I had, as well as a USB stick with the exercises, and was pretty fine. I asked the question:
Can I get pictures of my vocal folds?
And she said yeah. You can see these later.
We then went to go to see the vocal exercises being demonstrated.
She starting showing lip fraying exercises. but was like no don’t do it now, do it in 2 months please (oops). (wow 2 months is a long time.) (but yeah it’ll be fine.) Also walked through the rest of the exercises.
I was also showed the massaging of the muscles (or whatever) on the neck, and I did have to actually do those.
After showing this all, we went to main reception.
They printed out the pictures of the vocal cords for me again.
Before leaving, I got reminded many times along the way: drink lots of water, no speaking for 2 months, checkup in 3 months.
I was also handed a prescription document and supply of Clemazopam 0.5mg, that i may or may not need to take starting 3 months in, depending on how good the vocal recordings are.
and that was it.
we said goodbye, and left Yeson for the last time.
Pictures of my vocal folds before
