Hello ladies and gentlemen, as you all have guessed, I survived my total thyroidectomy. It wasn't easy nor pretty (seriously, my scar looks like a lady's body part on my neck). The first night after my surgery was pretty awful. First, it took them about four to five hours just to find me a room, and I ended up being the last person out of recovery. As they were wheeling me to my floor, I saw my sweetie when the nurse pushed me around the corner. The moment I saw him - bammmm. I threw up all over myself. It was like a freaking horror movie.
Loving boyfriend appears on screen.
Heroine pukes on herself.
And scene.
The anesthesia and I ended up duking it out that night, and I lost. I couldn't stop getting sick and couldn't hold anything in my stomach. The second trip to the little girls' room I made that night - it ended with me passing out and waking up to eight or so medical professionals surrounding me. The nurse's aid was helping me to the sink. I could feel myself getting weak and everything was getting quieter. She asked if she needed to go get a chair for me. I said yes and please get it quickly.
When I woke up, I was wondering why they were waking me up from such a lovely dream. I was surrounded by so many unfamiliar faces, telling me, "DON'T CLOSE YOUR EYES, LARA." It was very nonsensical to me. I was so sleepy - of course I wanted to close my eyes. The nurse's aid told me that when I passed out and I was falling to the chair, I hit my head on the back of the wall. I was also told later that my blood pressure was very low and I was hypocalcemic. They kept injecting me with anti-nausea meds (one of which caused a nasty allergic reaction on my arm, ugh), and waking me up every hour to check my vitals. They came close to moving me to a monitor floor, but ended up just putting me in a wait and see mode.
My surgeon told me around 8 that morning that my night O terror won me another night in the hospital. Fantastic. My roommate was an 80 something woman with dementia who kept yelling at the nurses. At first I thought she was a little cray-cray. After being woken up numerous times that night and the next, I understood why she kept yelling at them. "Why won't you let me sleep?" she kept asking the first night. The next night, I kept asking, "Why won't you let me sleep?" Hope you're doing well, Gertrude.
I got released from the pokey around 10 in the morning on the second day, also known as my birthday. My calcium levels are still low but my surgeon thinks I can manage it myself. I was told if my extremeties start to go numb, I have to go to the emergency room and get on an IV of calcium. So far, so good.
I don't know if it's the drugs or the fact that the fuzz on my head is really noticeable now... but I was in a fantastic mood yesterday for my birthday. When my sweetie and I got home last night, I popped some painkillers and watched television. He gave my birthday gift: the newest Harry Potter on DVD/Blueray. Sweet! Just what I wanted. We ate the mini-cake my stepmom bought me for my birthday. It was exactly the kind of birthday I wanted to have.
Every birthday from here on out is going to be special to me, but definitely not cause for celebration or partytiems. I'm done with that - seriously. This is going to sound completely sentimental of me and even borderline cliche.... Every birthday I have after my cancer diagnosis is a giant FU to cancer. I was 30 years old when I was diagnosed, and now I'm 31. Every year I get older, the more I can say, "I'm a X amount of year breast cancer survivor." I think that's pretty darn cool.
Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes and the general get well sentiments. I really appreciate it. I promise you and more importantly, I promise myself that this is the year I'm going to get stronger. 30 sucked and I have a feeling that 31 is going to be the year I get better.
