插入跨度后合并文本节点

I have an extension where I am storing/retrieving a section of the DOM structure (always a selection of text on the screen) the user has selected. When I am storing a selection, I enclose the section in a SPAN tag, and highlight the text in yellow. This causes the DOM structure around the selected text to split up into various text nodes. This causes a problem for me as when I try to restore this selection (without refreshing the page) it causes problems as the DOM structure has been modified.I have an extension where I am storing/retrievi