My Experience – First Installment

If you are having a total thyroidectomy, removal of your thyroid, I wanted to give some encouragement. It is kind of scary because it is surgery with anesthesia and all. I was lucky to have a friend who is a breast cancer surgeon, whose partner actually did my thyroidectomy upon her recommendation. She also was able to take care of choosing the anesthesiologist, because they asked me I had no idea deferring those decisions to her. In that way I was totally blessed that this woman is in my life. And her different mindset was comforting. She is in surgery all of the time, while I (like most of you I assume), are not. Thank goodness. To her surgical mind, this surgery I needed was no big deal, to me it was the scariest thing ever. She said it’s an in and out surgery, no big deal. In my mind for the next three weeks waiting for surgery, I repeated that over and over in my head, “in and out, no big deal.” It comforted me.

Like other surgeries, you can’t eat or drink past midnight. My surgery was scheduled for 11:00 and they didn’t end up taking me until 2:00. The waiting throughout this entire 5-month ordeal to get to this point and then the waiting that day was the more horrific part. Our minds create terrible scenarios and we must rein them in (at least mine did). On the day of surgery, I was able to bring my daughter to her school for the first day of school, which was nice I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I had been starting my own brand new teaching career for the first time on that day. That was nice, I kept thinking of her in my head all day and what a big first grader she is. I also spent time worrying if the surgeon had lunch, maybe I asked them to tell him that he should have a little nap after his last surgery so he’d be fresh for mine. I know, I know...

When they came to get me for surgery they gave me whatever it was and I said bye to my mom, I had a picture of my daughter that they let me keep in a plastic bag in my bed and I was holding that and I was out before I hit the doorway of the room. The next thing I knew I was in the most horrific pain I had ever been in and there were bright lights blinding me. I started moving around and trying to talk, they told me not to and gave me something. I woke up again, the surgeon was looking at me with his bushy eyebrows and little blue cap on, and I signed thank you to him. I was, at that point, quickly remembering where I was and thankful to have woken up. Now if you know the sign for thank you it is a hand from the chin and of course, you mouth the word at the same time. At that point, my mind always being my best buddy, I had to hope that he knew I said thank you and not the sign where you brush your fingers under your chin for an F you. I never asked him, I hope he knew. Wouldn’t that be crazy if I did the wrong sign or he took it wrong, my throat hurt so badly, it was really a toss up.

I heard him talking to somewhere in the ether, saying she had a very well behaved little girl who would like to see that her mother is okay and could she come in for a moment. I fell asleep again and awakened to my mother’s voice, and felt a little hand touch mine, and it was her, my reason for everything. I tried to talk to her but I knew after a moment that I wasn’t making any sounds that were actually words. Thank goodness, we sign a bit to each other. This is lucky so I was able to tell her I loved her and to be a good girl for Grammy and Grandpa. I could only blow her kisses; I was not moving my neck at that point. My mother told me it was already 7:00 at night and they had to take her home to bed. I couldn’t believe it was 7:00; apparently, the side of my thyroid with Hashimoto’s disease was so huge that he had a difficult time getting it out. He had to remove a parathyroid, and saw another one that looked sketchy, so he left a blue stitch in it, so if I ever had trouble the next surgeon would know which one. Odd. I equate it to leaving a flag on the moon, he was marking his territory, I think.

I had to spend one night in the hospital, I’ll tell you about that next post.
I said this would be encouraging, so if it doesn’t sound it, well, I’m here to write it and that is encouraging in itself!