if you appeal your answer to a question that was deleted, does that effect the ability to process the appeal?

No, it does not. Customer Care will still see your appeal and the answer associated with it. If your appeal is approved, you simply will get your 10 points back. But the answer will not be restored unless the question somehow is put back on the site as well.

Keep in mind that Customer Care is backlogged on appeals - they have been for a long time. Not hearing back for a while does not necessarily mean the appeal is lost or that you didn't win; it may just mean they haven't gotten to it yet.

out of curiosity, what was the dispute? i didn't have a question deleted but i had two answers deleted. i was reported i guess by some driveby spam reporter. i appealed both, won one of them (for the life of me i couldn't understand their denial of the other... they said my original answer "made no sense" so they wouldn't restore it)

but i don't tend to write questions or answer in controversial or explicit ways so i don't usually have a problem with these things