Recovery update

It's been four days since surgery, and the recovery is going really well. I'm up and about, and am getting more mobility in my neck every day. I even went to the kindergarten sing-along on Friday (2 days after surgery). I've not been sleeping all that well. I like to fall asleep on my stomach and I can't quite pull that off yet, but it's getting easier to find comfortable positions. I generally have pretty good energy during the day and then not so much after dinner.

Yesterday I finally finished sewing a skirt for Lucy, and today made one for Rowan (this is a project I started several months ago and never got around to). They turned out ok! I should post photos...but Rowan ran away from the camera. Oh well.

Not much else to report. My follow-up with Dr. Boyle is on Tuesday...I'm thinking I may be able to go back to work as early as Wednesday.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Got home today just in time to see the last point of the Sharapova match, and then all 40 minutes of Serena walloping Errani. Can't wait for Djokovic/Nadal tomorrow morning, quite jealous of Jean-Loup who's actually going to Roland Garros to watch in person.

Recovery's going as well as can be expected I think. I've been able to eat today and have had some energy, though not a lot. Not in much pain at all, but can't move my head too much either. Hoping for a good night's sleep. I never actually got assigned to a room at the hospital (they ran out of beds I guess), just spent all night in the recovery room. It wasn't so bad, but it was hard to sleep this morning with all the commotion.

It's super-common for the parathyroids (small glands that attach to the back of the thyroid) to get damaged or even removed during thyroidectomy. I was told they found all four of mine, and re-implanted two of them (I guess the other two stay put, or maybe they just didn't bother reimplanting those?). The parathyroids have something to do with calcium absorption, and almost everyone with thyroid surgery has to take calcium supplements for some time after surgery. Usually it's just temporary, and surgeon seems confident it'll only be temporary for me. With the nausea last night they didn't give me the calcium tablets though, so my fingers and toes got tingly...felt like I'd been sitting on them too long or something. All better today.

The wound is pretty ugly right now, but Rowan & Lucy haven't been too freaked out by it. Rowan was really not happy with the idea of my neck being cut open, so I was especially worried about her, but it turns out she was more upset about our holly trees being cut down than she was with my neck when she got home from school today. (We cut down the hollies out front! Bare feet, here we come!)

Back home

Jenny was discharged this morning and we got home around noon.  Next couple days will probably be pretty low key here.  Naps, French Open, books, etc.

I was able to see her wound (?) for the first time earlier today -- yesterday it was bandaged up -- and it's very noticeably right now, to the extent that she is wary of scaring people who don't know what's going on.  As it heals it'll turn into a scar and then fade over time.

Surgery Update #1

Our surgeon, Dr. Boyle, says that everything went as planned today and that the surgery was successful.

We went into the hospital around 10am and Jenny went through pre-op for a couple hours, meeting nurses and attendants and signing forms.  Around noon she moved to the operating room (the OR if you're in the know).  Surgery took roughly 3.5 hours but it wasn't until around 5:00 that she had recovered sufficiently to see anybody.

Recovering from the general anesthesia hasn't been easy thus far.  Jenny felt nauseous a few times even though she's only had a couple nibbles of Saltines over the past 24 hours.  The doctors ramped up the meds to fix it and that makes her sleepy.  She's been fortunate in that pain has been mild so that's less of an issue.  Another thing that turned out well is her voice -- sometimes people that get her surgery struggle to speak for a few days but she is already talking clearly.  Tonight she'll sleep in the recovery room and hopefully will wake up tomorrow morning feeling much better (and very hungry).

Becky and Mike took the kids today, which was a big help because it enabled me to just hang out near the hospital.  They made the mistake of ordering only a singe pizza for dinner though.  The kids demolished it, leaving them with only a single slice each.  Lesson learned, Rowan and Lucy can eat!

Tomorrow I'll swing by the hospital in the morning and see how Jenny is doing.  The plan is for her to come home around 9 or 10am.  My last chore before bedtime is to get the French Open set up on TiVo so she can watch tomorrow.  She or I will post an update tomorrow.

Surgery countdown

One week to go until surgery (June 5)! I had a great low-key weekend hanging out with new and old neighbors, not going anywhere. Got to show Rowan high-level women's ultimate on TV (college nationals was streaming live on espn.com!). Nate's uncle Rich is here visiting for the week and helping fix up our house. Main project is making the workbench space in the cellar more usable--I can't wait!

Other things going on recently:

• I've been doing some tinkering stuff with Rowan's kindergarten class...low-temp hot glues guns, hand drills, sanding, screwdriving, etc. Mostly I just set them free to make whatever they want out the bits and pieces I bring in, but I'm thinking of doing a more structured project before the end of the year (which is fast approaching!). I'd like to let them use a hammer for something... Any suggestions? I usually have 5 kids at a time, for 30 or 40 minutes.
• I got some Montessori math beads and have been introducing the kids to them. Rowan loves counting by tens, and Lucy's making good progress on ordering 1-9.
• My new favorite song (Rowan learned it at school): The Water Cycle Song. She also came home singing 'Country Roads' -- love it!
• Lucy started drawing faces and bodies...next step: arms and legs.
• I successfully replaced the screen on my iphone after a bad drop on the sidewalk. All taken apart, the phone was in like 25 parts (including the screws)...it was awesome.
• It's Nate's last week at DoJ -- Georgetown, here we come!

Finally some good news

CT scan results are in: no evidence of metastases to the lungs. Hooray! CT scan isn't as conclusive as the scans they'll do with the radioactive iodine, so it's not for sure, but it's definitely nice to finally get some good news.

Nate's birthday is Saturday...his major plan is to distribute the huge pile of mulch in front of our house around and about. Should be fun. :)

Met with the surgeon today

Jenny and I went into Georgetown today to meet with Dr. Lisa Boyle, the head of the surgery department there and also an accomplished thyroid surgeon. We arrived 30 minutes early and (amazingly) got put right through to see the nurse practitioner and Dr. Boyle. Our interactions were friendly and positive. No real new information to report except that we now have a date for surgery scheduled:

*June 5*

Jenny will spend a night in the hospital and probably take a week off work. Still working on the details there. But we're really happy with the timing, both because acting is psychologically easier than waiting and because Jenny should be recovered from surgery by the time summer rolls around. Dr. Boyle says there is a lot of flexibility in the timing of the radioactive iodine treatment so we have increased confidence that this won't disrupt summer vacation plans.

After meeting with Dr. Boyle we strolled through the Georgetown campus and then headed home, where Jenny's cousin-in-law Lindsey was covering for us with the kids. We ate dinner on the patio and chatted as the kids ran around inside and outside the house. Good times.