First I am going to go through the last 8 days-
Tues- Oct 26: 9:30am appointment with Dr. Song over the next days procedure. Much relief after speaking with him. 11:00am appointment at the hospital with the nurse- all procedures for check in are done at this time. I am told to call into the hospital after 2pm and they will tell me what time to arrive the next day.
Wed- Oct 27: I am told to be at the hospital at 10:30am, with the usual, no food past midnight, take a sip of water and the last (hooray!) high blood pressure pill. We arrive at the hospital and I go into a very nice area, IV is placed in my arm and all is going well. Surgery is scheduled for 12:30pm and as usual it was pushed back to 1:30pm. No big deal I am now full of saline and am going to the bathroom (nervous pee) every 30 minutes- this continued later too! :) I was then brought to the recovery area- given some nice meds and the last thing I remember is the doors in the operating room opening. Next thing I know I am waking up and the nurse looking at me asked if I taught spin classes and handed me an ice pack that I continued to use off and on the next 3 days. So the funny part is I woke up talking- if you know me you know this is usual and a very good sign! I remember being sore and I had the nurse roll a blanket and place it behind my neck then I used the triangle bar above me to pull up a bit. I still find it funny how that you use neck muscles to sit up. When I arrived in my room I ate a regular meal- some delicious chicken, rice, chewy green beans, ice cream, grapes, hot tea and water- I was apparently starving.
This is where I really start noticing things- the drain tubes hurt, and I had to pee again. Through the night I would sleep, take meds every 4 hours, watch TV, fall back asleep and usually make a trip back into the bathroom every 30 minutes to 1 hour with 8 to 10 oz of fluid. I sleep upright, I love the air compressors on my legs and even my bed was comfortable. I was in NO real pain- my only complaint was the drain tubes.
Thurs- Oct 28: By morning I was a bit sore and I noticed that I would wake myself up with funny vocal noises. My throat was a bit more irritated, I did continue to sip water but now it felt like I was swallowing it down the wrong pipe so I would begin choking and coughing- it was uncomfortable. I was also draining- it reminded me of having allergies that have turned into an uncomfortable cough. This I know was normal, since they apparently placed a small breathing tube and another instrument to watch the vocal cords in my throat during the operation. It was irritated- sleeping up right was the best thing. Again, with the meds I was on I had no real pain. I do not take Vicodin but instead use Ocycodone. The nurses were in to take a second calcium reading, breakfast came and then it was a waiting game. Dr. Song returned to the room around 9:30 and said that my Calcium reading were better 8.7 and now an 8.9 and that he was going to remove the drain tubes and I could leave to go home at 10:30.
The drain tube removal- yuck! I had 2 tubes and tube 2 hurt and was the only one that collected any fluid. He sniped the suchers holding them in- small amount of pain and pulled them out- not to bad but tube 1 did make a whistling noise that I was not expecting- yuck! They added bacitracin to the site and covered told me to do the same over the next few days.
In the picture above you can see the steri strips are still on, the site of tube 2 only had to covered for 2 days while tube 1 was taking a bit more time to dry up. It looks like someone grabbed a drinking straw and poked me with it.
The rest of Thursday is still a bit of a blur- I know I slept a lot, I remember watching Gray's Anatomy but have no idea what happened. I continued to take my pain meds now every 6 hours. Again- no real pain, just very uncomfortable and felt like I had on a tight turtleneck.
Fri- Oct 29: 5:00am wake up to take thyroid meds. Set out my next pain pill to take at 6 along with the antibiotics and calcium pills. 5:30am rolls around and I get out of bed and threw up. Nothing but bile and drainage- Clint said that would have made any Coast Guard proud. I also threw up a lot of air- it by far was the strangest being sick experience. However I followed that by not taking a pain pill but an Aleve instead and ate half a mini loaf of banana bread. For the most part of Friday I slept, and coughed in the evening we went to our usual Penne Pasta for dinner- again did fine and went to bed.
Each day since has gotten better- Saturday after a small shopping excursion I did take a 3 hour nap and Sunday I made it the entire day without one, even went to church- still a bit hoarse so did not sing and ...hello it was Halloween and I wanted to see the Parade on Front St.
Monday I did go into work- around 10:30am I was feeling it so went home and napped again- Clint brought me some lunch around 1 to eat- worked on some things for the trade show on Thursday and we did go out to eat for my mother- in - laws birthday followed by a walk down Front St.
The above picture was taken a few hours after the steri strips were taken off.
Thurs Nov 4:
Day 8 and looking better everyday- the super glue is a bit itchy! :)
There are a few things that I truly think helped me with my recovery...
1. Fitness. Being in shape and taking care of myself helped more than you can imagine. I also think that this helped with the pain aspect as my first week of Crossfit was worse! Needless to say I have to wait 1 more week to start back at 60% in the workouts. By the end of November- I should be almost back at 100%!
2. Most important... positive attitude!
Update- one of my 6 nodules was in fact follicular carcinoma. I will be meeting with the endocronoligist in the next few weeks. Good news is that 99% of everything has already been done...WhooHOO!
Picture update:
Nov 12, 2010- using Mederma 3x per day. Still a bit of tightness, which I call healing! Started back at Crossfit on Wed.
Picture update: April 24, 2011- everything is great- after the 8 week 3x a day use of Mederma, I now use it once a day and at night I put Vit E oil on it. Did you know that Vit E is also good for those fine lines? :)
People only notice if I point it out!
Your throat is very prominent on the last picture
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