Tingles

So here is your anatomy lesson of the day. When they took out my thyroid gland, my parathyroid glands were most likely disturbed or damaged. The parathyroid glands are responsible for absorption of calcium. When your calcium levels drop, you start to tingle. Like your hands are falling asleep, except all the time. And it happens in my cheeks too. Strange, right? It's SUPER annoying. So I'm pumping myself full of calcium supplements (3 pills 4 times a day) to ward off the tingles. They are like horse pills, though. So combined with the sore throat- not great. But I hate the tingles.

Surgery- The real scoop.

I'm 2 days post-op today. I'm finally feeling like a real person again. I can't lie- the recovery has been a lot harder than I expected it to be. I guess all I have to compare this to is gastric bypass and this is much harder than gastric bypass.

So first a bit of an update from the medical side. Surgery went as expected. I was in surgery about 4 hours- longer than expected. They ended up taking out some of the lymph nodes around my thyroid that were pretty enlarged so things took a little longer than normal. Although the surgeon has opinions based on the way things look- nothing will be final until the pathology comes back sometime next week. But from what she says- her opinion is that I'm most likely headed in for another surgery to remove the nodes on the side of my neck and I will most likely need to have radiation iodine treatment. I'm not quite sure of the order of operations yet or when this will all occur. Most likely in about 6 weeks or so. (Pathology pending, of course) The recovery from this surgery has been a bit harder than I anticipated, so I'm not looking forward to the prospects of another one, but we'll just take one thing at a time.

But while I'm at it...I have to tell you about my hospital room. Cause it was oddly bizzare/awesome. I was wheeled into this room, opened my eyes- and thought I was at the Hilton. We paid for a private room, but this was more than I expected. It was like a suite.

It was a little odd, cause it was very hotel-ish- but actually turned out to be worth every penny.

I lived.

Home from the hospital. I'm in more pain than I expected to be. So the drugs are flowing. Will update more later. Thank you for all the good comments and love. It's really very much appreciated.

Bye Bye Neck

So sorry about the up the nose shots...but I just wanted to document my pre-surgical neck. Tomorrow it will have a yucky scar. I'm starting to have anxiety about the scar. Will people stare at it? Will it be red and ugly for a long time? I don't want to walk around with this reminder of this bad thing all the time. I guess I just don't want to have cancer.

Tomorrow at this time, I'll be in surgery. We have to leave the house at 4am to get to the hospital. I'm not afraid of the surgery, just afraid of the aftermath.

Cross your fingers for me.

More Awesome News

Spoke to the surgeon today. Turns out I have 7 enlarged lymph nodes in my neck near my jugular vein. Dr. C (surgeon) says "they may or may not be cancerous". You mean just like when they told me that I may or may not have thyroid cancer? She says they are too far away from the thyroid to address in this surgery and there are too many of them to biopsy. She says that Dr. W (new super endo) agrees with her.

So what does this mean? It means that 6 weeks after surgery I'll have an uptake scan to see if the nodes are cancer. If they aren't- super mega awesome- no big whoop. If they are cancer- then I'm headed back to the operating room for a much more invasive surgery called a Neck Dissection. (Which, ps- only reminds me of AP Biology and fetal pigs) I'm not afraid of thyroid surgery. It's pretty low risk in the grand scheme of things. But Neck Dissection?? No thank you.

I've been handed a pretty rough deal the last few weeks. If I could ever ask for a break, it would be here. I really don't want this cancer to have spread. Please. Just this one thing.

Where's my Chance?

So a little update.

I met with the surgeon and a new endocrinologist that specializes in Endocrine Oncology at Washington Hospital Center. The good news- surgery is scheduled for Friday, April 8th. The surgeon was kind enough to explain all the risks including potentially losing my voice for a while or not being able to yell ever again. All in all, not bad. I'll be in the hospital overnight and out of work the entire following week. The not so great news- new endo (who I really like, ps) thinks that I will need to have radiation iodine treatment. That current assumption is based on the size of the nodules and the fact that there are more than one. The final decision about whether or not I'll actually need to have that done is based on the pathology reports after surgery. The shitty news- radiation iodine treatment means IVF is off the table for a year after it is completed.

I feel like when you go through infertility- it takes away all the good parts of trying to have a baby. It becomes a job or a chore. It becomes this huge source of stress instead of this amazing thing you and your husband share. You put your body and your relationship and your finances through this huge thing and at the end of it- all you really get is a chance. And now it seems like the chance has been taken away too. I was already really having trouble dealing with the stress of IVF and all it brings with it, but now knowing that I'll have to sit back and wait is very hard and very sad. I don't want to spend the next year being sad every time someone I know has a baby or get pregnant. I don't want that to be my first reaction. And I'm not sure how to stop that quite yet.

So for now, I guess I just have to somehow try to see the good in this. I will be fine and I will survive having cancer. For now I just have to hope I'll get my chance one day.

And if you read all that- you get this:

2 week wait

I'm in the middle of a whole new two week wait. Two weeks from now I won't have a thyroid. Let's just get this freakin show on the road.