thyrexit

sorry, i couldn’t resist.

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two weeks post op

the pic to the left is me 14 days post-op from my thryoidectomy.   it’s finally, finally, finally done, and i really couldn’t be more pleased.  the whole shebang was, very much so, much easier and less confusing/frustrating than the whole lead up to the surgery had been.

i am so thankful to have had so much support leading up to, during, and after my surgery.  i had so many folks reach out–people who have had the surgery before and are living now without a thyroid, midwives who shared fantastic stress management tools, friends and family who were willing to listen to all of my yapping about the surgery, friends who committed to care my animals, friends who ran ridiculous errands for and with me (hooray for forgetting car tag renewal!  hooray for dishes that magically get done during the great chick pick-up of 2016!).  i had folks who committed to be there for stephen while i was in the hospital.  i had folks who asked me to come stay with them for my convalescence.  I HAVE WICKED AWESOME FOLKS, Y’ALL.  i was so incredibly cared for ❤

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stephen and i decided that since i had to be at the hospital at 8am on the 21st, it would be best to stay in portland the night before.  on the 20th, tyler ran me around town for some last little errands.  because we couldn’t fit the chicks in the convertible (plus, how flappy-bird traumatizing would that have been? lol)  we left them for later pick up.  i left the cat two fat bowls of food, knowing that no one would be back for at least 2 days, and we hit the road.  the gang sans stephen, who was working, met up for a great dinner at boda in portland. (tamari soaked, sesame fried quail eggs, anyone??)  last solid meal for a while.

we crashed at the portland clarion (they have a sweet medical discount for anyone who’s having surgery fyi), and somehow i was able to get an amazing, full night’s sleep.  while waiting on stephen to arrive after work, i ordered and ate perhaps the worst piece of cheesecake i’d ever had–truly, but i finished it because i was about to be without food for a bit.  i ate more leftovers at midnight and set my alarm for 5:00am so i could get up and have one last cup of black coffee.  after that, it was npo until after surgery.  in a stroke of evil irony, the clarion gave us both free breakfast bar passes.  i might have killed someone for a piece of bacon by the time we left.

when we got to the hospital, check-in was short and sweet.  i sat in a room with a registrar, answered the same old questions i’d answered for maine med a million times, got a bracelet, and headed back out to the waiting room.  the room, which was homey and comfortable, was full of families waiting on people who’d gone back into surgery hours before.  i could never be a surgeon–i can’t start my day at 5.

when they called me back, i checked into less of a room and more of a curtained alcove with all of the other people in pre-op.  i had to shuck my clothes and johnnie-up (starch overload!) and tuck into bed on a gurney.  the person before me in my particular operating room ran over a bit, so stephen and i had to hang out in my little alcove for a little over an hour.  i got an iv, my first done by a professional in 17 years.  since all i had to compare it to was the million ivs i’d gotten in skills class at birthwise, it felt positively like a back massage.  i got a bleb of lidocaine in my hand first, so i didn’t even feel the stick, which in a hand is a big deal.

before i wheeled out to the or, i got a blast of versed in my iv.  “you might feel dizzy and woozy,” she said.  i felt like my eyes struggle to find focus for about 3 seconds…then nothing.  normal life.  i remembering hoping that the anesthetic was MUCH more effective for me. (it was)

i kissed stephen and was tucked into bed under warm blankets and wheeled down the hall to the operating room.  i remember wishing that i could hit a pause button and explore all the cool stuff in the room.  what might have seemed alien had i not been a midwife–glass cabinets full of suture, blue surgical drapes, piles and piles and piles of gauze and surgical instruments–felt calmingly familiar.  i was asked to scoot over from the gurney to the operating table (a less than graceful process for a large woman in an open-backed gown!) while a bevy of folks shuffled around the tables, equipment, and lights populating the small room.

when i settled down onto the bed (and was strapped in) the overhead surgical light twinkled in my face in a million little facets, and the very last thing that i remember is hearing the anesthesiologist’s voice (which was very kind and calm) telling me that she was injecting the anesthetic (milk of amnesia!) into my iv.  she held a mask over my nose and mouth and told me to breathe deeply–the last memory i have is a very strong beach-ball-plastic smell, which means i drifted off thinking of childhood shenanigans in our above-ground pool….

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undress patient to the waist
mark incision line with purple pen
betadine wash from navel to chin
cut the skin and anchor to chin and chest
dissect fat
dissect platysma
separate the sternohyoid muscles
manually dissect the thyroid from the surrounding structures
(gasp when you see that it is displacing the trachea and vena cava)
reach behind the sternum to free overgrown thyroid
decide a sternotomy is not necessary
carefully identify and cut/cauterize all vessels attached
carefully identify and preserve the recurrent laryngeal nerves
carefully identify and preserve the 4 parathyroids
remove thyroid and send all 310g of it to pathology
suture sternohyoid muscles
suture platysma and fat
finish with a subcutaneous running mattress closure
jam neck-skin full of long-lasting injectable anesthetic
cover your work of art in superglue
write a surgical report about how hard the surgery was because the patient was “super obese” (say this six times over the course of two pages so the insurance company will know you need ALL THE MONIES for your hard work)
send your newly-necked patient to recovery

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the recovery room was a surreal experience.  i don’t remember actually opening my eyes–i don’t think i could.  i regained consciousness and felt like i was trapped in the dark inside my own body.  not in a scary or anxious way; in a sleepy don’t care sort of way.  as i came around a little more, i started to feel like i was having the worst hang-over in the world, and i became nauseous.  i remember saying so and then being promptly pumped full of phenergan, which soothed the nausea and knocked me back out.

when i woke up again (or so my memory says), i was in my own tiny room.  beth and stephen joined shortly.  it was 5pm, which felt very strange.  my surgery had taken just under four hours instead of the projected two.  i’d been in recovery almost two hours. weirdest jet lag EVAR.

day of surgery

my stay at maine med was, all things considered, pretty delightful.  i slept or dozed for most of the rest of that first day, whisper-chatting with stephen and beth in the in-between.  my nurses were fantastic (the first one drew a bat signal on the white board as told me to call anytime i needed anything), as were the cnas and lab folk.  i had a couple of blood draws to check my calcium levels (parathyroid damage would have shown up as out-of-whack calcium), and i wore inflating leg compression thingies that were fun.   tickticktick POOF. pssssss.  tickticktick POOF. psssss.  a nice massage that actually helped me sleep.  they gave me ibuprofen and tylenol, plus oxycodone at night.   i called in dinner, which was an interesting combo of most of maine med’s soft/mushy foods, and that went down well enough because of all of the medication i was on.  because of the complication of the surgery, i stayed overnight, and besides having my vitals taken every 4 hours, the stay was restful enough.  stephen, ever the trooper, slept on the floor because there were no cots for the rooms.  a sweet cna brought him a massive stack of pillows to make a bed from–i’m sure it was an awful night sleep, but i was glad to have him there.

the next day, we had breakfast (technically just i had breakfast, but the kitchen didn’t ask why i’d ordered so much…mwahaha).  my bloodwork was fine, so they did let me go home that afternoon.   i left with a bottle of oxycodone, a bottle of levothyroxine (my thyroid hormone-in-a-bottle for the rest of my life), and a newly found neck.  the incision looked pretty impressive, but i later figured out that about half of what i could see what just purple surgical pen and superglue.  the incision itself was just a little tender, but the inside of my throat felt like it had been cleaned with a grill brush.

the drive home was a challenge.  each lump and bump on the road hurt like a bitch, since bouncing breasts do indeed pull on neck skin.  i did a lot of deep breathing and clutched my chest to immobilize everything.  around 70 minutes later, we arrived at the porch in north bridgton where i would stay for my convalescence.  they’d set up a lovely room for me with a zillion pillows for sleeping upright, a glass and water pitcher, phone chargers, an air conditioner–luxury!  madz was at a conference, but shane was there with me, and beth and tyler came over as well.  stephen stayed until nighttime when he scooted home to to the lee because he had to work the next morning.

the first night was hard.  i was dosing up regularly with ibuprofen, but my neck hurt and had no range of motion because of the swelling and pain, and my throat felt like strep times a million.  i was totally wiped out and wanted to sleep, but the weight on my neck of sitting up and down hurt like a beast.  crying about any of it was completely off the table because screwing up my face would also have made my neck hurt even more.  it was helpful to have shane and tyler there for support and comic relief, though it was hard at times to try to keep myself from laughing.  sitting up in my bed, holding my hand, and marveling at the “after,” shane looked at me and said, “you know, i don’t mean this to sound mean or rude, but i’d always just kind of thought you had a fat neck.”  it was the new me–swanny as fuck, and barely suppressing a good laugh.  i, too, had had no idea just how much of my neck was pure thyroid 🙂

swollen and sore, but happy!

the next several days were a combination of hard (the swelling got much worse, pressing on the stitches and necessitating a return trip to maine med for evaluation) and wonderful (nap after nap after nap, good friends, ’round the clock care, and a huge weekend shindig that meant wonderful healing laughter drifting up the stairs constantly as i dozed).  i lived off of baby food pouches (which wasn’t bad!), milkshakes by shane, smoothies by madz, and the occasional dinner food run through the vitamix (SERIOUSLY, you need to blend grilled kielbasa into your mashed potatoes every time!).  i didn’t hit the solid food mark until about 8 days post-op.

at two weeks, i returned home to the lee and went back to work for a light/modified work week.  the soreness in my throat was completely gone, my voice was 95%, and the swelling, while not gone, was substantially reduced.  the incision had almost completely closed and healed over, except for one small spot.  i had an arsenal of scarves for now, and silicone patches for later.

now, almost a month post-up, i still have a lump behind my incision scar where fluid fills the ex-thyroid space.  they say that should be gone in another month or two.  i feel AMAZING.  i have more energy and vigor, i’m not hungry all the time, i can swallow, i can hear, i can breathe at night, and i can put my hair in a ponytail without putting myself in a sleeper hold.  i have lost rather than gained weight, and besides weird achey legs at night, i don’t have any of the sometimes troubling side effects of levothyroxine hormone replacement.  i won’t be totally reliant on the pills for another 2 weeks (my natural hormone has a wicked long half life) so we shall see what happens.  i hope everything continues going well.

i’m super stoked not to have had a sternotomy, something that was unsure when i went into surgery.  that would have dramatically increased my recovery time, and it would have meant no trip to england (august 1, yeah!!!!).

i can’t even imagine going through this without a doting husband and a truly uniquely amazing group of pals.  i always had help when i needed it, i had constant reminders not to over-do it, i had whatever combination of company and privacy i needed.  most importantly, i had humor and love.

and now for the enormous bill!!

to be continued…