thyroid

I've gotten plenty of kind words from friends near and far about my recovery from my thyroidectomy. Figured I should explain everything that's happened to all those curious. I'm definitely alive. The short summary explanation is:

• The Doctor, an expert in his field, said I was the first challenge he's had in years. Apparently, my thyroid was tough, my lymph nodes larger than normal. Surgery took about an hour longer than expected.
• After a careful analysis of everything they took out, I have no cancer, no abnormalities, and am totally in the clear. They took two of my parathyroids by accident, which they warned us before the surgery could happen. (They are tiny and often can't be differentiated from other tissue.) This could lead me to have a Calcium imbalance.
• I had a little hoarseness the first day but my voice is now back to normal.
• They inserted a creepy drain in my chest to eliminate any chance of infection. Said drain was removed on Monday.
• I had some tingling in my arms and legs, which can be attributed to low calcium levels ( a side affect of the surgery in general), but in my case was actually a pinched nerve in my neck. Advil has reduced the swelling and the tingling has gone away.
• I was off the serious pain meds after day 2.
• The scar is healing nicely.
• My neck is still sore.
• Other than the occasional tiredness, so far I'm feeling pretty damn good, considering.

For those of you interested in the extremely boring minutiae of a thyroidectomy, feel free to read on. Click here to get all the boring details. You'll be bored to tears. I just felt the need to write it all down.

Independence day for my thyroid comes tomorrow. At 12:15pm MT tomorrow I walk into the University of Colorado Medical Center where they will cut my thyroid out.

I'll miss ya little buddy... I'll miss ya.

2007 was not a good year to be a Mordecai. My mother got thyroid cancer, and not just any thyroid cancer, but the rarest and deadliest form of thyroid cancer. Fortunately, even the most virulent form of thyroid cancer takes its sweet time getting stronger, taking a very long time to grow and mature.

Due to some great luck and great doctors, my Ma, last fall, was able to get her thyroid, and all the cancer removed. She was just recently declared Cancer free by her excellent doctors. However, someday it might come back and hit her again, so from now on she gets to get regular testing to check preventively on that little cancer bastard.

Now, one might ask, how does this involve me? The answer, my friends, is fancy science.