All Clear! (well kind of…)

I had a busy day with 2 doctor appointments! Grandpa was my chauffer to the first and mom drove me to the second.

First one was with the dentist to get my new retainer. His assistant saw my stitches and steri-strips and asked what happened to my neck (I had a diamond necklace surgically implanted so no one could steal it). My dentist knows what has been going on and he asked how I was doing and what the results were. I said I didn’t know yet but I was getting my results (hopefully) and my stitches taken out in the afternoon. Then he graciously offered to take my stitches out and I told him no way, I still wanted to like him after the appointment!

Then I had lunch with Grandpa and mom at Russ’ where they did the handoff. Then mom and I headed up to the Surgeon’s office to get my stitches pulled out and to hear the results of my pathology. He came into the room and immediately said that my right lobe and lymph node were all clear of cancer! YAY! I was still digesting this news as he pulled out the stitch. Then he did some reflex tests because of my calcium issues and gave me lab slips to check my calcium (today) and my TSH (next week). I’m still on the Tums but he did mention tapering the dose if this test comes back good!

Future plan: I'm still having the RAI because of the tumor on the left lobe - we still don’t know if it spread on that side to lymph nodes, etc. I will have a whole body scan with a tracer dose of RAI and whatever that shows determines the dosage for the real RAI. After I get the real deal RAI I will get another super sensitive whole body scan – this one will tell us if even a tiny amount of cancer went anywhere else, and the real deal RAI will kill it.

So its now a waiting game until my TSH levels go above the 30’s. (I’m starting from 0.34), at which time we can schedule the first scan and appointment with nuclear medicine (the thyroid cancer version of chemo/radiation).

	Z scar & swelling 3 days after surgery
scar & swelling 1 week after surgery with stitches removed a

Calci-YUM!

Tum, Tum, Tum, Tum….TUMS!

So my calcium is still all out of whack! I get crazy tingling in my hands, arms, feet… it basically feels like my hand fell asleep and is starting to wake back up almost constantly. The Dr. said that if I got this sensation in both hands and around my mouth that I would have to get checked ASAP. So far i’ve had both hands, one hand & one foot, or just my mouth tingling - but never 2 limbs plus my mouth at the same time. Believe me I will be having a chat with the Dr on Tuesday when my stitches get pulled out because this is nuts!

To combat a calcium plunge, i’ve been dutifully chewing on 2 peppermint Tums tablets every 4hours while i’m awake. That equals 8 peppermint Tums a day or approximately 160% of my daily recommended value. Even this cannot stop the tingling and I wonder if I will ever be able to stop chomping on the chewable chalky peppermint goodness that is Tums? I’m thinking I must have some parathyroid damage so is it permanent or are they in a recovery period? Only time will tell… in the meantime, its time for my 7th & 8th breath refreshers of the day!

Hit by a Truck

Ok so i’ve been feeling pretty good overall since surgery. There has been the “normal” pain and swelling but my voice has only been a little hoarse and I didn’t have the vicodin nightmare that happened after the last surgery. Feeling good, however, can be a fleeting thing…

After I got home from the hospital, I pretty much spent the day sleeping on the couch while my dad watched Top Chef (and dozed off) on my loveseat. So when my mom came over after work I was wide awake and feeling good. I was so awake that I stayed up reading after my mom went to bed. (Mom is staying with me for a few nights – good thing I have a guest room!) I woke up once during the night but took some meds and got a new ice pack and went back to bed until morning. Thursday morning I was able to take of the bandage and shower for the first time since Tuesday morning. The bandage was taped on really well and it hurt to pull off. I’m also slightly allergic to surgical tape adhesives so it had burned my skin in one place. It didn’t really help that the betadine also makes my skin break out - yay for being a blonde with fair, sensitive skin! The shower was wonderful though and I felt so much better after washing my hair!

My mom had the day off and my aunt Pat came over so we could have a girls day. We looked at pictures, talked, watched Confessions of a Shopaholic and ate Chinese food. I was sitting up and talking almost the entire time but still felt good. When she left, Vanessa and Lindsay stopped by for a visit and I was up and talking for another couple hours but still felt good. Then my mom and I had dinner and I finally laid down to relax a bit… My neck was throbbing and my ice packs couldn’t get cold enough. It was at that point that I knew I had done too much, too soon. I took some extra meds and got out a heavy duty ice pack and slept like a rock.

I woke up this morning and feel exhausted and bruised from the bridge of my nose to my waist – basically like i’ve been hit by a truck! Today’s plan is to rest all day so I can be up for any visitors that stop by tonight, and to also save up some energy so I can visit a little with family this holiday weekend. If i’m feeling up to it, my mom is going to bring me up to Gma/Gpa K’s house in Newaygo for a few hours on Sunday and to Gpa S’s BBQ on Monday. That’s the goal at least!

	Flowers, cards, magazines, scrapbook supplies… My family and friends rock!

Surgery #2 Update

I'm coming off some darvocet so bear with me ;o)

I know you are anxiously awaiting my update on surgery so here it goes! We got to the hospital pretty much on time (6:55am), picked up Grandpa in the lobby and headed to the surgery check in. We were surprised to find a nearly empty surgical check-in room! Either everyone was much earlier than me or much later or... they just didn't have a big schedule? Anyway, once I got checked in I waited maybe 10 minutes before getting called back to the pre-pre-surgery area. (btw i like their scale, it said i was 4lbs lighter than my home one) When we got back there I was told to pee in a cup (urine preg, required on all women of age) and disrobe and then wait. So wait we did... About 8am they took me to the pre-surgery area where my IV was started in my hand (ouch) and I chatted with my surgeon and anesthesiologists briefly. Then I got some happy medicine, dropped my parents off at the surgical waiting room, and remember being told to move to the other bed and then I was out!

I woke up in PACU to someone in the next bed moaning like crazy. I didn't make a sound and I think I startled the nurse when she saw my eyes were open. She asked if I was doing ok, I said yes but it was starting to hurt so off she went to get some meds. She came back with toradol and dilaudid - the good stuff - and I was feeling good in a matter of seconds. My mom came back to see me and it seemed like just a few minutes later I was off to my room! (this was maybe noonish?)

When I arrived on 5West I was promptly told that I had the best room on the floor -5 West has all private rooms and is usually reserved for hysterectomy patients (my connections are in the OBGYN world) and the views of downtown were amazing!

I was also near the helipad so I saw aeromed land and take off a few times. By this time I had several visitors in my room - Gma & Gpa K, Gpa S, Mom, Dad, Katie.. I started drifting off to sleep and they headed to grab lunch. Everyone was amazed that I was talking so well - much better than last time but this time they didn't have to scrape my vocal cord. I was armed with my new pink quilt (from work) and pink pillowcase (from Jessa) and all the nurses & techs loved it!

So basically my stay went like this: I had my vitals taken every 30mins-1hr, was poked by lab for calcium levels every 4-6hrs and got up to walk a couple times that night. They kept me packed with ice to keep some of the swelling down but I still have chubby cheeks :) Someone in surgery was a bit overzealous because the pulse ox was on so tight it had bent my nail down – yeah that hurt a bit. Then I noticed that my nose hurts a little because I have a bruise on the bridge of my nose and some slight bruising under my eyes from the breathing tube/mask. I also had betadine from my nose to the backs of my shoulders to about 5 inches below my collarbone. I guess I would rather have them be overly cautious!?

This morning I was told that although my calcium levels were still in the “good” range, they had continued to drop during my stay. My surgeon wanted them to stabilize before sending me home so I had Tums ordered and another blood draw. One of the side effects of my surgery is damage to the parathyroid glands which control blood calcium levels. Hypoparathyroidism (hypocalcemia plus hyperphosphatemia) can cause numbness & tingling, muscle cramps and in severe cases seizures. So you can see why they were concerned with my levels dropping… It means that my parathyroid glands took a bit of a beating through both surgeries. My last blood draw showed that my levels were stabilized after the Tums so I was able to come home!

Now i’m home and ready to ice and rest once again. I have darvocet for pain and have to take 2 Tums 4 times a day (8 total per day) until further notice. I have band aids in both elbows and on both hands from blood draws and IV’s and of course the giant bandage on my neck! :) That can come off tomorrow when I can finally shower so i’m eager to take a peek behind the “curtain.” I will be back at the Dr. on Tuesday to get my stitch out and then we start more blood draws to see how fast my TSH rises… hopefully it goes fast so I can get my RAI and be done!

Random Thoughts

I thought this was hilarious...why not add a bit of humor to surgery day? (ps i set this to auto post so don't get upset this isn't an update on my post-surgery status!)

Random thoughts from people our age...

-I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.

-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

-I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

-Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know"feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

-There is a great need for sarcasm font.

-Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f was going on when I first saw it.

-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

-How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

-The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

- A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.

- Was learning cursive really necessary?

- Lol has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

- My brother's Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads.Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, "Cuz we beat you, and you hate us." Classy, bro.

- Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart",all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"

- While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

- Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

- I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

-Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty,and you can wear them forever.

-I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

- Bad decisions make good stories

-Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!

- Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?

-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....

-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

-There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

-I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

- "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.

-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello?Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

-When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

-I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle,then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

-Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles...

- As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers,but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

-Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

-I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

-Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I’d bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...

-My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?

-It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text. -I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

-The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words,someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.

-I think all of the water/ice-in-door dispensers should be larger. Since my whole glass doesn't fit under there, I would say I wind up water my kitchen floor at least as often as I get a nearly-full glass of water.