I didn't die!!!

Good morning!! It's post op day número uno, and I am alive! Surgery day is behind me and the rest of my life is in front of me and for that I am thankful! I feel as if a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Ahh I can breathe. I was surprising calm the whole time waiting to go into surgery. I think the worst part was getting my IV put in which was done by the anesthesiologist so one time bam! it was in, but now I want it out.

I bet I waited about an hour in the pre op holding area as we will call it on my stretcher by myself while my family waited in their separate holding area, anxiously watching a board with a number that  corresponded to my name to let them know where I was at. Finally after what seemed like forever, someone from my surgery team finally came to wheel me back. He slipped something in my IV to make me feel "relaxed" although I'm beginning to wonder if it was just a placebo because I didn't feel relaxed. A short trip later we arrived into the creepy operating room. Aren't all operating rooms creepy? Ice cold and usually mint green for some reason. They transferred me over to the operating table put a mask over my face and told me to breathe deeply, then told me to breathe deeper because I wasn't breathing deep enough lol and that's the last thing I remember.

The next thing I remember was ripping off the oxygen mask and saying I didn't die! Because remind you I really thought I might die during this operation. I'm so giddy I'm alive. Then the next thing I remember is being so stinking hot, the nurse must have noticed I was roasting because she asked if I wanted my socks off and started pulling all but one of the 87 blankets off of me.
Now I've never gone under general anesthesia before and it can make some people nauseated, well I guess I'm one of them, so bring on the zofran then the pain meds they gave me made me even more sick to my stomach so I needed more anti nausea medication. I ended up staying like 3 hours in recovery. This whole time my family is still waiting to see me, finally at 2:30 I get to go to my room in a much more comfortable bed and get to see everyone. Relief for them, I just want to go back to sleep.

I've had two roommates so far. Damn you semi-private rooms! My current roommate had her thyroid removed and had a tiny little I would say maybe not even 2 inch incision. I have a good 5 inch incision across my neck. It serious looks like I've had my neck slashed open. All in all though I'm very lucky, my left lobe was a little bigger than they thought. 8cm they said. They had to cut out some muscle along with it because I guess it started to attach to the muscle and they removed at least one suspicious lymph node that I know of. My husband was scared to death. I'm damn lucky they caught when they did. Who know what would of happened if it would have never been detected. Crazy shit I tell you.

Last night I started to get numb and tingly in my face and feet which means my calcium is low, so the cure for that is tums ultra. See they were able to leave some if not all of my parathyroid but they could be bruised or damaged right now and they need to heal, hopefully they will heal. Your parathyroid controll your calcium and vitamin D, but the tums helped last night.

I didn't get any sleep. Between my roommate and I getting labs and our vitals or meds there was no sleep to be had here. Jimmy was not allowed to stay with me so he is out there somewhere in the city of Pittsburgh right now. Plan for today is to be discharged on synthroid and tums! I can't drive until I get full range of motion back in my neck. I see my surgeon in a week so we can discuss seeing an endo and how my surgery went and if and when I will need radiation. I'm going get off of here to try to order to grub since I can actually eat. Rember cancer is not a death sentence!