Next steps

So surgery recovery is basically over. I'm still puttting vitmain e oil on the scar to supposedly help it heal better... that'll continue for most of the summer I think, but already the scar's not so bad. I've got full range of motion. Neck is still kind of mildly irritated around the scar. At first I thought that was from the suture strips, but they've been off so long now I'm not sure I can still blame them. Maybe I'll call the surgeon tomorrow.

Other good news is that the dosage of thyroid hormone replacement they gave me seems pretty good as far as I can tell...I feel normal. They may still adjust it based on blood work later, but I was worried there would be a lot of tinkering with the dosage just to make me feel ok, and now I'm thinking that won't be the case.

A few days ago I scheduled all the radioactive iodine (RAI) stuff. It is going to be a super pain logistically, but hopefully not that bad physically. So I'll swallow the main I-131 RAI pill August 28 and stay overnight in the hospital that night (happy birthday, Dad!). In the 10 days prior to that I'll have to take 6 other trips to the far side of DC (Washington Hospital Center) for various stuff:

• four trips for Thyrogen injections - that's the drug that'll boost my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) levels to make the RAI more effective without me having to go off the daily thyroid hormone replacement pills. It's kind of a recent development that you can use this stuff...prior to it people had to go off their hormones for several weeks prior to treatment and scans, which meant they basically had to become super lethargic and grumpy for a couple weeks every 6-12 months, depending on how frequent their follow-up scans were. It's good I don't have to do that.
• one trip to swallow low-dose I-123 pill for pre-treatment scan - this'll help them tell if cancer has spread elsewhere, like to lungs or something, could affect my dosage of scary I-131.
• one trip for the I-123 scan. 

Most of those visits should be fast, basically in and out, assuming I don't have to wait too long for them to take my blood (though last time I did have to wait a while for that). They told me to expect to be there 3-4 hours for the scan though. Boo.

Then after hospital stay when I'm still glowing I have to stay away from people and animals for a week. Probably I'll do most of this at Nate's parents' house in Richmond. That week spans the first day of school, which I will be sad to miss, so maybe I'll come back early and figure a way to be isolated here, I don't know. The half-life is pretty short, and I'll pee most of it out in the first couple of days, so really I think I'm much less dangerous after a few days, but still will be keeping my distance.

Good news is we can still take our trip to California at the end of July, and I won't miss Rowan's birthday (August 25). The low-iodine diet will start August 5 and end when I leave the hospital August 29. My mom has already filled our freezer with low-iodine soups, bread, granola, pies, etc. 

Then the last thing (as far as I know) is post-treatment scan on September 4. Then I should get like 6 months off before follow-up I-123 scan (no isolation, but still 2-3 weeks of low-iodine diet and at least 4 trips to WHC). My endocrinologist promised that the excellence of the nuclear medicine department there would make all the travel worth it. He better be right!

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. :)