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| Source: CVS.com |
So here's a brief update and then I'll go back to posts sans cancer talk.
I had my thyroidectomy on October 18. After two days my incision barely hurt at all. Twisting my neck ached but that was the extent of it, just a scratch across my throat. I wasn't able to lift Dylan for a few weeks to give my stitches and muscles time to heal.
And then a few weeks after surgery my neck began to hurt again. A dry, achy, painful hurt. The only way I can describe the pain is feeling like I had a giant paper cut. The muscles in my neck and the scar tissue were stretching as they healed and I felt as uncomfortable as ever. Perhaps I did too much too soon. Technically I still shouldn't be picking Dylan up as the recommended no-lift period is 2-6 weeks.
However, I found a godsend. This moisturizing cream. The pharmacist at CVS recommended it over those $30 scar healing creams and for $6 and change, this simple lotion has taken my pain from a constant aching to almost nonexistent.
In other news, I've had very numb fingers and toes since the surgery which means that I am not out of the woods yet with hypocalcemia. The doctor prescribed me 50,000 ius of Vitamin D to help with the tingling and I take 8-10 calciums a day. I counted all of my medicine because I felt so elderly with my XL pill case. Turns out, I'm currently taking 99 pills per week. Ninety-nine. And I try not to take any medicine while pregnant so this thyroid cancer really put a damper on a medicine-free pregnancy.
The receptionist called me tonight with my latest blood work results and said I'm borderline hypocalcemic again, but still within the safe range. When I told her that I had a lot of numbness she contacted the doctor and prescribed me an extra vitamin D pill, 2,000 ius this time, which I will take daily starting tomorrow. 106 pills a week now. Ridiculous.
But I am feeling great. I really am. Other than the numbness, I feel much better than expected. I still have to take it easy and I tire quite quickly and splurge on two-hour naps everyday when Dylan naps, but I feel so much healthier now that my tumors have been removed.
I will have to do the radioiodine therapy about 6 weeks after the baby is born and I will be in isolation for about a week. Thinking about the treatment makes me not want to get out of bed in the morning so I don't think about it. I read a blog entry from a woman who went through the therapy and she described it as a room wrapped in plastic, a person dressed head to toe in a hazmat suit and carrying a potion with tongs, and a week of solitude where no one talked to her. I told Sean about her account and how sad the thought of being away from my family for so long made me and Sean of course made me laugh with his response. He said, "If it was me going through the therapy, I'd throw the hazmat suit on myself, sit in my own radioactivity, and go to work that same day!" He also thinks that he'd be at work the same day as giving birth if he was the one to give birth.
Yes, honey. I'm sure you'd feel like going to work after labor.
Anyway, cancer shmancer.