My brother had sinus surgery at the age of 26. What
had been a promising baritone voice became a
non-promising nasal baritone voice, because his velar
port seal was removed in the process. He can't close
up his nose now -- he cannot, for example, stop a flow
of breath with his throat open; he can't sigh on an
"s" for any long amount of time because air comes out
of his nose as well as his teeth. He had to relearn
swallowing and swimming, but other than the singing
thing (his voice became unfixably nasal in quality and
he gave it up) he's perfectly normal. If you try to
vocalize, keeping your nose (it's the velar port,
right?) open the whole time and never closing it,
you'll hear why he gave up singing.
It was never a vocation for him, only a hobby, and he
wasn't very upset about it (he considered the health
benefit a good tradeoff). I'm not sure what they
drilled through or whatever (I never cared to learn
the painful details of what he called "getting my
sinuses roto-rootered out"), or if it was an accident
or part of the process. I doubt his experience was
common, but it's something to ask your doctor to be
careful with.
Also, will they intubate you? Ask them to use a
child-sized tube and to be very careful if so.
Another opinion.
Isabelle B.
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Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...
ibracamonte@y...
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