Professor Tonchev Pleomorphic Adenoma surgery - Personal Story

HELLO,

When I first heard the diagnosis pleomorphic adenoma of the parotid gland, I did not know exactly what it meant. I knew only one thing - something serious was ahead, and I had to choose whom to trust. That is how my path inevitably led me to Professor Tonchev (DSc).

On the internet I found medical terms, statistics, and dry descriptions of parotid gland surgery, but I did not find the human story.

I decided to share here information and experience that I could not find online. My goal is to help people who may find themselves in the same state of weightlessness that I experienced.

I am not eloquent, so do not expect a polished literary text. I will mainly follow the chronology. I will not introduce myself; I believe the domain is sufficient. However, I will share certain things about myself that I think will clarify my feelings, thoughts, and decisions.

• For those who think this is an advertisement: Please do not waste your time - you will hardly find anything useful for YOU here.
• For those who think I have gone into too much detail: In my initial state, this is exactly what I needed to read.
• For those who are personally in my situation: I hope this will be of help to you.

The flow of information is one-sided because I will say everything I would tell you tête-à-tête.

Factors that shaped my attitude toward medical professionals and the healthcare system.

• I am a person who has NEVER in my life spent even one night in a hospital. I have never had anesthesia, my skin integrity has not been violated except for accidental childhood wounds, I do not even know my blood type. Result: fear of the unknown.
• There are doctors in my family: a surgeon (gynecologist) with 37 years of experience, a neurologist with 35 years of experience, and a medical imaging specialist (MRI + CT) with 15 years of experience, but unfortunately I can only consult them remotely and spend only 45 days a year with them. This is both a plus and a minus at the same time. In endless dinner conversations, you dive into all the details of the kitchen of medicine. You realize that doctors are people at both extremes simultaneously (there are heroes and unscrupulous businessmen, good and bad at the same time - a whole spectrum). Result: both disgust and admiration.
• When my daughter was 1.5 years old, in the evening after an MMR (Measles, Rubella, Mumps) vaccination, she developed a fever and had a febrile seizure. She rolled her eyes back and was stiff like a board, stopped breathing for some time (or was breathing so faintly that I did not notice). 112 and I ran outside with her (we were on the 1st floor and it was September), I spat and tried to revive her; when I heard her scream, I realized I would faint (this happens to me constantly after severe stress and I know myself), I lay down on the sidewalk and that is how my wife found us. She was taken to the infectious diseases department, the details of which I will spare. In the leaflet of M-M-RvaxPro it says "Warnings and precautions: family history of allergies or seizures (convulsions)". This was a simple febrile seizure, simple because her immune system reacts very sharply (it is so to this day), but I started "blowing on the yogurt so as not to get burned."
• The attitude of medical staff toward my relatives who have been hospitalized. After routine blood tests, my father turned out to have a PSA of 13 (without any symptoms), a biopsy followed after which he has been with a catheter for 4 months. Despite treatment with antibiotics and tamsulosin hydrochloride, we were twice refused a (paid) residual urine measurement with the aim of removing the catheter before surgery. I am not a urologist, but I think that after 3 catheter replacements, a residual urine measurement could have been done and if it was within normal limits there would have been no need to place a new one. Tomorrow 20.02.2026 he is scheduled for a radical prostatectomy. Definitely after the intervention I will have an MRI (Doubting Thomas).
• I will not describe cases of nurses smelling of alcohol or those who cannot place an IV cannula in two attempts, as well as the "businessman" doctors who prescribe you a 23 BGN antibiotic and a 63 BGN probiotic (personal experience) and YES, as unbelievable as it may seem to you, they exist.
• As a person I am extremely principled (for NOTHING in the world would I neglect my principles), for me justice comes first regardless of the resources needed for it to prevail (I burn a blanket for a single flea). I do not believe in jurisprudence and the justice system in Bulgaria (perhaps like many others).
• In my profession there is room for nothing other than "1" and "0", and so it is in my logic. There are no "gray" areas or N shades of gray (gray is a combination of black and white), so everything else is like being "slightly pregnant" or a barrel of honey with one spoon of excrement inside (I am sure you would not taste the honey). Any claim, if not supported by arguments, is speculation. I do not accept a claim without arguments and facts.

 

!!! Something Important !!!

Someone might think that I have overdone it by creating an entire "website" for this purpose. The reasons are several: (1) I would hardly be able to fit such an amount of information (including visual content) into a forum or a comment on a specialized site, (2) I do not like to depend on someone else's services, (3) as long as I am allowed to pay for the domain, the content will remain accessible, (4) if something happens, I can always "raise" the content at a new location :)

 

I have intentionally not allowed comments because in most cases they turn into a "battlefield".

Why in four languages? These are the languages I speak fluently, and they are also the unique foreign languages spoken by the staff of the Department of Maxillofacial Surgery at UMHAT "Medika".

 

In the website content you will notice that doctors’ titles (and/or academic positions) are written with a capital letter, without abbreviations, and are repeated every time before the name of the title holder. This is NOT a spelling mistake.

If anyone has a problem with this, please first complete 7 years of medical education, learn (note that I do not say "read") the necessary number of volumes of literature, defend at least one dissertation in order to deserve at least the title "MD", and only then reason about it. The goal is to place strong emphasis on the fact that these people have put in an enormous amount of work to earn their titles and that, if only for that alone, they MUST be respected. Although in the last three decades academic degrees have been awarded more easily than before, it is still more difficult than unscrupulously gathering a group of construction workers from villages and installing drywall in order to buy the latest BMW model. Medical fact.

At least that is what I think.