"You're Not Sick"

My room had the best view in the whole hospital I was told. I was on a floor which was a women's only oncology unit which was amazing. My nurses took really great care of me and they all were very kind and attentive. My first nurse's name was Angelina and I know that her name had the word "Angel" in it for a reason. She was awesome. I continued to be very nauseated and had a hard time keeping my calcium pills down. After a thyroidectomy, you have to take calcium because your parathyroid glands are out of whack and since those are the glands that help process calcium, you have to make sure you take a lot of it.

Kirk, my sweet husband, stayed with me that night. I could not have done it without him. He helped me with everything and was such a good caregiver. Besides throwing up my calcium pills, the other problem I had was that I had to have my blood drawn every couple of hours to determine my calcium levels. For whatever reason, the nurses had a terrible time getting into my veins. When I left the hospital the tops of my hands were seriously black and blue. All the fluid that had gone into my arm was slowly decreasing, which was good to see. That night was rough. I felt extremely tired, but didn't feel like I slept at all. But it was okay - I was used to having a newborn!

When the sun started coming over the trees, I was relieved. That meant I was going home soon! An anesthesiologist stopped by to check on me as well as the medical student that had observed my surgery. I couldn't believe it, but she took my stitches out right then and there, not even 24 hours after my surgery. There were only two by the way! Amazing. I had more blood taken and finally my surgeon stopped by to check on me. I have to say, my surgeon is one of the most upbeat people I have ever met. "So, your surgery was great," she started off, "And you get to go home today!" I was so relieved to hear that. After going over some questions with her, I found out that my thyroid was really enlarged and she felt it was definitely the right decision to take the whole thing out. According to her, my thyroid was messy. It was ugly. It looked like a bomb had gone off in there and the thyroid was literally destroying itself - I had thyroiditis and a whole slew of enlarged nodules. She had taken out a bunch of lymph nodes, some of which were tested right then and there, but none contained cancer. "So," she ended, "Your surgery went well. You're not sick. Get up. Get dressed. You're going home soon and I will call you within the week about the pathology report." An intern put steri-strips over my incision and took out the tube that was draining from my neck. When my blood results came back saying that I had sufficient calcium I was released.

Praise God! I couldn't wait to get home and see my precious babies...