It’s been a week since my surgery. Everything went well. I’m doing great.  Welp, see ya later.

Just kidding!

So here’s how it went down. I got to the hospital at 6:30 Monday morning with Mom and Dad. Around 7:30 I stop remembering things. But I hear Dr. Hamilton did some surgery. They made a nice little incision where we are hoping I will have a crease one day.  ☺

When they went in they noticed my thyroid was black. There were also bumps on the left side of my thyroid. At this point, they 86ed the whole “cut out half and see if it’s cancerous” plan and just took everything out. They also noticed a sneaky little parathyroid gland hanging out on my thyroid, so they peeled it away and hoped for the best (If you touch parathyroid glands, they stop working). And, as we all know, the parathyroid controls calcium.

Image via Wikipedia

There were also some weirdi little lymph nodes, so they took those out, too. They were thinking the two lymph nodes might have just had some fat deposits but they wanted to be safe. And who needs two lymph nodes when you already have 80? Not I.

As you can tell, they were very thorough. The surgery ended up taking about 3 hours when it was supposed to take 1 ½ hours if they needed to take out the whole thyroid. But let’s be serious, my thyroid was black. They better thorough. So I’m very grateful. ☺

If you’re having a hard time keeping up, here are my stats:

Thyroid: 0
Parathyroid Glands: 4
Lymph Nodes: 78

As I was coming out of anesthesia, my doctor was kind enough to tell me everything that happened and I quote, “We did a complete thyroidectomy because it was black.” He may have said other things that I may or may not remember, but I got the gist.

I stayed in the hospital that night. Then Wednesday morning they gave me some Percocet, thyroid meds, and calcium – in case my parathyroid had, in fact, died – and sent me on my way. And THANK YOU so much to everyone who came and visited me. Sure, I might not have known what was going on but I trust it was wonderful. ☺

So who’s wondering about cancer? Well, it turns out the lump that was taking over half  the right side of my thyroid was a follicular adenoma, which is a benign tumor. So great news! Since they took everything out when they were in there, I’m all done! No iodine drink! Nothing!

Now who’s wondering why my thyroid was black? Well, they are thinking that the lump was preventing the blood from leaving my thyroid, so it was using the same blood over and over, therefore turning it black.

At my post-op today, we found out that my parathyroid glands are working, so I don’t have to take calcium anymore. Which I am super happy about because they’re horse pills. My incision is also looking very good. They just ripped my little tape off, which may or may not have hurt … a lot. I should be able to move my head around like normal in about two weeks (My neck is all kinds of tight, so when I sing or yawn or talk I can feel every little thing going on in my throat. Weird. And don’t even think about sneezing after surgery on your neck. (Sorry for the parenthetical tangent)).

So everything’s good! Now get ready for the corny. Thank you so much everyone for your prayers and fasting and thoughts. I can’t believe how amazingly supportive everyone has been. Thank you for sweet messages that made me laugh and cry. It really meant so much to me. I am so blessed to be surrounded by such amazing family and friends.  Thank you.

So, I haven’t been posting so much lately because there’s not much going on. But something happened! Granted, not a good something, but a something nonetheless.

I have had this lump on my throat for a while now. I was sick, so I thought it was a swollen lymph node and I didn’t really worry about it. But it was getting bigger.

This Monday (Oct. 5th) I went to an ear, nose, and throat doctor who immediately recognized it as a mass on my thyroid. He talked briefly about maybe it being a cyst and how great that would be. He then delved into all of the different kinds of cancers I can have on my thyroid. Luckily, I didn’t really qualify for the two cancers that are crazy rare and not treatable. But there were two other Thyroid Cancers in the running but they’re “the ones you want” apparently.

As I left Dr. Hamilton’s office, he said, “So I’m just hoping for Thyroid Cancer.” I told him my vote was also for Thyroid Cancer only because I hoped he was joking.

Needless to say, I was freaking out. I tried to play it cool but totally lost it as I walked to my car.

We still needed some answers so I made an appointment to see the endocrinologist. I had my appointment yesterday. In order to know what was up, I needed to have an ultrasound and a biopsy. The ultrasound would tell us if the mass was full of fluid or if it was solid. If it was full of fluid, we would just suck that business out and be done.

For those of you who are at all familiar with my medical history, you know I always have some crazy cyst taking over my life. So, understandably, I was sure it was a cyst.

But, alas, the time for the ultrasound came. To my dismay and the two endocrinologists in the room, it was a solid nodule. It was larger than a centimeter, which I guess is pretty big; to the point that they were surprised I didn’t have a hard time breathing or swallowing (Which is kind of a lie because I have been having a hard time breathing for a few weeks when I would go to bed.  If my pillow would even think about touching my throat, you better believe my windpipe didn’t even try to do its job). Cancer was then an option. That’s when you start crying in the doctor’s office.

At that point, we knew I needed surgery to remove the nodule. My right lobe would also have to be removed with the nodule. However, we didn’t know if the nodule was cancerous or not. I was hoping that they would be able to do a biopsy right then, but the soonest my doctor could do it was next Thursday (Oct 15th).  As you can imagine, waiting nine days to find out if you have all kinds of cancer is not acceptable. The only comfort was knowing that it was the Thyroid Cancer you want to have. ☺

If I were to have cancer, they would remove my whole thyroid and I would be on thyroid meds for the rest of my life. The nice thing about this cancer is that it doesn’t require chemo or radiation. They just take everything out and then I drink some iodine drink and it’s done.

So I was waiting all yesterday to hear back from Dr. Maturlo (Endocrinologist) and Dr. Hamilton. Definitely didn’t hear back from them. I called Dr. Hamilton this morning and we decided that we would wait for Dr. Maturlo to do the biopsy to determine if one lobe was coming out or both. So we would get the results back on the biopsy next Monday and then we would do surgery October 26th. Call me crazy, but I didn’t want to wait that long. So a new plan was presented.

We would forgo the biopsy. Instead, we would have a pathologist in the operating room. As soon as the right lobe and nodule were removed the pathologist would cut it open and check it out for cancer. If there’s cancer, we’ll take out the rest of my thyroid. If they don’t find cancer, the lobe will be sent to a final pathologist who will cut it all up into tiny pieces and check for cancer again. There is about a 5% chance that the final pathologist will find something the first one didn’t.

When he told me the surgery would then be on the 15th, I said, “Sold!” Of course, I asked Dr. Hamilton if he was comfortable about the new plan. He was. So that’s the plan.

The surgery is very straightforward; Dr. Hamilton wasn’t worried about it at all. The only risk is that there is a nerve that goes down and around your thyroid and connects to the vocal cords. If that nerve is damaged, I will have a scratchy voice. I prefer to say I will have a sultry voice. ☺ Unless I just sound like Marge’s twin sisters on The Simpson’s. Not cool. The chance of that happening is less than 1%, so I think I’m ok with that.

There you have it. I’ll have surgery in about a week at which time I will find out if I have been cancerous. Sorry if this post has seemed casual and almost jokey but it’s really all I can do to stay under control. And I was kind of freaking out before I even knew what was up, so I got a lot of it out of my system. I feel good about what’s planned. I’m scared out of my mind for the surgery (I’ve never had surgery), but it will be ok.

My family has also been helping a ton. Everyone has been super supportive and are willing to cry with me. ☺ Today our family had a fast, everyone has been putting my name in temples, and my brothers are coming over tonight to give me a blessing. There has been so much support; it’s been amazing. Sure they’ve only known for a day, but they’ve been champs, especially since this news came out of nowhere.

Stay tuned for cancer results! Geez louise, that sounds horrible. But what are you gonna do?