3 July, 2001: The Aftermath
Here's what happened. I went in to the hospital this past Friday, June 29, and things got underway pretty much on schedule. My buddy Kyle took me there and hung around to keep me company, which I was glad for, because I'm a big crybaby and was feeling pretty nervous. Around 12:00, John, the day nurse, came in, gave me some pills to take, and warned me that I'd be wanting to get into my gown because I'd be getting dopey when the Xanax took effect. At 12:30 or so, Peter the Orderly came to get me and they wheeled me down to the staging area for the surgery.
Next, a nurse put in my intravenous line and the anaesthesiologist stopped by to say a few words before going off to check on the operating room. This is where I believe they may have indulged in a bit of legerdemain, because the nurse injected something into my IV line that would make me "nice and sleepy"... and then I woke up in the recovery room with some guy hovering over me saying "[Foo]... [Foo]... scale of 1 to 10... how much pain are you feeling?" and shooting incremental doses of morphine into my IV line. Now, I may have just fallen asleep before I was supposed to and they decided to leave me that way, but I wonder if they didn't trick me to keep me from getting nervous as they hooked me up to stuff in the operating room. Or maybe it's amnesia. In any case, I didn't have much chance to get really nervous, and I'm grateful for that.
After they got me back up to the room, my surgeon came by to see me and told me that the surgery had gone well and that he'd been able to safely remove the thyroid without harming the nearby nerves or the parathyroid nodes. He did say that he'd had to remove one enlarged lymph node--which the pathology results have since confirmed was tumorous. He didn't see any others, however, so I take that as a good thing, and he has confirmed that the lymph node doesn't change my overall positive prognosis.
I stayed overnight and didn't get much sleep, what with the pain and the nurses coming in to check me and my roommate at least once an hour for most of the night. Ice packs, ice water, Darvocet, nasty instant chicken broth and suspicious yellow Jell-o made up most of my Saturday. I had to hang around until 3:00 to have blood drawn, because the doctor wanted to make sure my calcium levels were okay before releasing me. Calcium absorption in the body is controlled by the parathyroid, and although mine weren't damaged, I'm told that they customarily go into shock for about 30 days after a surgery like this, and I'm on massive doses of what probably amounts to oyster shells to combat this temporary problem.
Got to go home about 4:30 and have been doing pretty well ever since. I'm nearly off my pain pills now, only taking them when I've spent too much time talking to someone (mostly retelling this whole story). My voice tires easily and becomes hoarse, but again, I'm told that this is a temporary situation.
I have my first post-op office visit with my surgeon on Thursday, and I suspect that's when he'll fill me in on my schedule for the next couple months--let me know when I'm going back to work and all that. I do know that he's keeping me on my short-term hormones for 30 days, which will carry me safely through my July 19 visit to St. Louis. This will allow enough time for my natural thyroid hormones to leave my body. I'll be taken off the Cytomel and be on nothing for a number of days, after which I'll receive my radioactive iodine treatment.
The precise reason for this I-131 treatment or "iodine bomb" as I've come to call it) is a little confusing to me. I've been thinking that this was designed to kill any surviving thyroid cells (and, ostensibly, cancerous ones), but from the way the surgeon was talking it may be to allow another scan to see where there may be other cells that need treatment. I'm not sure. It may serve both purposes at once.
In the meantime, I'm doing pretty well. My throat doesn't hurt too bad, and as long as I'm not on my pain pills I'm driving myself around just fine. I just want to say how much I've appreciated all of you guys' thoughts and prayers through all this.
But keep them coming, because it's not over yet.
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