Thyroid Surgery and other news

Six years ago in a routine physical check up, my doctor felt nodules in my throat and immediately sent me for an ultrasound of my thyroid.  They found 2 nodules and I've had biopsies every 6 months since then to make sure they were staying benign (since they were continuing to grow).  During pregnancy, thyroid nodules in general tend to grow more rapidly, which in fact happened to me and I also developed a 3rd nodule.  One of my "older" nodules had officially grown to an operable size and they encouraged me to go ahead and have a thyroidectomy since it was starting to affect my swallowing.  Another reason why we opted for the surgery was because the endocrinologist felt that she wasn't getting a good sample from the biopsies anymore since it was so large and that there could be a malignant spot that we wouldn't catch by the small sample taken.

SO we had the surgery date of September 21st set on our calendars for a while... then our house ended up selling and even though we were moving out the week after we decided to keep the surgery (ahh worst timing ever).  We knew that it was going to be a crazy two weeks, so in came MOM TO THE RESCUE to help with everything we had coming our way!

Emery and I were so excited to pick her up from the airport (and were focusing on that instead of surgery)!  Here we are waiting and watching planes land:

 
We went to a park, and caught up the rest of the night together before the chaos began :)  Here is Emery with her "mana" as she lovingly called her all week!

That night, I was instructed to eat a very light dinner, take a shower with antiseptic body wash, and be at the hospital by 5:30 am the next morning for a 7:30 surgery time.   I also will admit I recorded a video for Kyle and Emery just in case the surgeon nicked my vocal cord and I no longer would have had a voice (yes that was a possibility).

Unbelievably we slept great the night before, and were ready to roll watching netflix on my phone in the hospital room to keep us busy until the nurses/surgeon/anesthesiologist started visiting.  

Here we are already in gown, and with IV in.

Before we knew it, it was time for me to be rolled away to the OR.  I left Kyle with tears in my eyes as nerves were starting to really kick in, but at the same time I felt so supported and ready to get it over with.  Once in the OR they said that they would give me something to relax, and that's all I remember!  One of the nurses called Kyle twice from the OR to let him know how the surgery was going and how I was doing... which was so nice.

The surgery went great (around 45 minutes total) and then I spent an hour and a half in the recovery room.  I don't remember much from that time except:

1) I saw my surgeon accidentally walk in on a nurse in the bathroom HAHA

2) The "recovery room" was basically an open hallway right across from the nurses station

3) The nurse was asking me questions and I was completely hoarse... so naturally I started freaking out saying "did they nick my vocal chord?" haha

4) They had to give me more pain medicine and that's why I had to stay in recovery longer than usual

5) and lastly that I COULDN'T WAIT to see Kyle and I know I told the nurses that at least 100 times

 
So how did my body react to anesthesia?  Great!  Here I am talking about the surgery but most importantly how much I love Kyle, haha.  It'll be a little hard to hear since I was so hoarse after the surgery but I still thought I would share.

Here is how my neck looked afterward... lots of bruising but super glue holding incision together perfectly.

I spent the next two days upstairs in bed sleeping, while Kyle took care of me and packed our house, and Mom took complete care of Emery.  Oh, I'm so grateful for these two and how I did not have to worry about one thing but resting!

 

Thank you everyone who said a prayer for me the day of surgery... it really meant the world to have your support.  It couldn't have gone any better, and I'm so thankful to have that behind me. The following Thursday I had a follow up appointment with the surgeon, where he took off my super glue, checked the incision, went over medicine instructions (have to take thyroid replacement pill for rest of my life) and last but most importantly discussed my pathology report.

After biopsying all 3 nodules, unfortunately one did come back malignant. The papillary carcinoma was not contained inside the nodule and actually had an opening against the right side of my thyroid, which in theory gives the cancer a perfect way to spread.  As scary as that news was to hear, my tumor was SUPER super small, so we are hoping the amount of cancerous cells floating around in my neck are minimal, if any. 

One of the things that I learned at a follow up endocrinologist appointment here in NC is that the first place thyroid cancer spreads is to your lymph nodes.  Our game plan right now is to go back to the doctor on November 2nd to do a detailed ultrasound of my neck through radiology to look specifically for tumors and enlarged lymph nodes (which they'll biopsy right then if they are enlarged or a tumor exists).  They will also running lab work on me that day to check my thyroid levels (how my body is responding to this medicine), and get a baseline for my "tumor marker" number.  This number will be checked monthly to make sure my number is not increasing as that is a sign of cancer growing.

After this appointment we will make a decision of whether to continue monitoring my status with ultrasounds & lab work, or if we should go ahead and do the radioactive iodine treatment.  I will most likely do the radioactive iodine treatment at some point, but for right now it's not our first choice as there are some temporary side effects and it would significantly delay our hope to grow our family in the next few years.  Needless to say, if the doctor feels it at all necessary to do the radioactive iodine treatment sooner than later, we will follow his lead and will embrace the new plan for our family.

I am sorry to write a novel, but that is the "other news" I hinted to in the title of this post.  Thank you in advance for your prayers on our upcoming appointment!