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It went...well?

11/30/19

I had my surgery last Tuesday, so 11 days ago. Boy, do I have a lot to tell you. I had to be at the hospital at 5:30 in the morning since I was the first surgery of the day for my ENT. I was nervous, but from what I read and saw in all the research I did, I felt like things would go well and recovery would be fairly quick. 

From my deductions, the surgery took about 4-5 hours, so I was out before noon, but I don’t have a good recollection of the first couple of hours after the surgery. Anyone who has gone under anesthesia will understand. It takes a good while to come out of it. 

Once I was lucid, the doctor came to talk to me. The surgery, he told me, went really well and if I was feeling okay in a few hours he was going to let me go home, but he wanted me to decide if I wanted to go home or stay overnight. Of course I wanted to be home, so that’s the choice I made.

Over the next two days, the incision felt like it was swelling and getting very red. The doctor called me every day to check on me, so I was keeping him updated on how I felt. By Friday I was very concerned, so I got in to see Dr. S, and as soon as he saw me and looked at the site he decided I needed to be admitted. 

I ended up staying in the hospital for two nights, and it turned out to be a reaction to the surgical glue, or at least that is what both the doctor and myself think. I was very relieved that it wasn’t an infection, but since the doctor wasn’t absolutely sure, I had three rounds of IV antibiotics and a weeks worth of pill form after I left the hospital. So I am pretty sure that a large percentage of the bacteria in my gut have been wiped out (bacterial genocide? Is that a thing?), both good and bad, which will surely affect my progress on AIP.

Now, a week after coming home from the hospital, the incision is looking much better, but is still way more red and swollen than any I saw on YouTube. I know, you can’t believe everything you see on the internet. The thing is, because of the reaction, and because I know me, I can’t put ANYTHING on the incision. No vaseline (allergic to petroleum products), no Neosporin, Bacitracin, or Aquaphor (same). The doctor even brought a colleague into the exam room at my follow-up on Tuesday, a plastic surgeon, to look at the site and give his opinion. He suggested not using anything at all for a few weeks. I purchased some silicone sheets specifically for this, but I guess I won’t be using them for a while.

I have ventured out a bit the last few days. A block to the corner store, took the bus to the mall today, but ended up not being able to do much. I feel like I got hit by a bus, so tired and drained, and any little bit of activity makes it so much worse. 

I have to return to work on Monday, so that should be interesting. We’ll see if I can last the entire eight hour day. 

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Here we go...

10/30/19

So, my surgery has been scheduled. It’s in three weeks, and now I’m starting to get a wee bit nervous. I haven’t really been up until now, but I suppose having an actual date made it more real. 

I have a voracious appetite for knowledge and am constantly researching...well, everything. So, of course I have seen, read, or heard just about everything on the interwebs about thyroid cancer and Hashimoto’s. Some of it is good advice, lots of it is informative, and a small percentage just scared the crap out of me.

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Choices.

So, I am thinking that I may have made a mistake starting the AIP diet right before I have my surgery. Since my thyroid is not functioning properly, I wonder if maybe I should have waited until after the surgery. 

Most of the meals I’ve made have been pretty good, although I miss some things. Oh, and I discovered that parsnips are NOT for me. At all. Ever. It seems like I am really hungry ALL the time, even right after I ate. This was actually an issue before I started the diet and I’m not sure why, but I have a feeling that the auto-immune disease plays some part. 

There’s no going back now though, so I will soldier on and see what happens. 

My ENT called me after my appointment with the endocrinologist to confirm that I had made a decision about which surgery to get. At my first appointment with Dr. S (the ENT), he told me I needed to make a decision about whether I wanted to have the entire thyroid removed, or just the left lobe. The nodule that they believe is cancer is in the left lobe. There appears to be at least one tiny nodule in the right lobe, but it’s not confirmed. He gave me a lot of information to process about the pros and cons of each surgery, and I went home to think and research. Research is how I process everything. Just ask my husband.

When I went to the endocrinologist and we talked about the options for surgery. She also went over the pros and cons, but something she said helped me make my decision. This is paraphrasing, but essentially she said, “If the doctor takes the entire thyroid out, and the labs come back that it is NOT cancer, how will you feel? Will you regret the surgery?” I thought about it and told her I would rather that scenario than have only the left side removed and find out it is cancer and it’s spread and they have to do surgery to remove the right side too.

I had been leaning toward having the whole thyroid removed, since there was a good chance it was cancer, but the biggest reason for that decision for me would be so I wouldn’t have to have a second surgery in the future (either a few months, or a few years down the road) to remove the other half of my thyroid. When she told me I had Hashimoto’s as well, I was pretty sure I had made my decision. 

So apparently Dr. S spoke with the endocrinologist, who told him about my decision, and he was calling me to tell me he would like to try and get the surgery scheduled as soon as possible. So now I am waiting for an opening so they can schedule it. 

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Time For a Change

After much soul-searching and hours and hours of researching online, I decided the other night that I needed to start on the auto-immune protocol (AIP) diet. The diagnosis of Hashimoto’s actually explained a lot of the health issues I have had over the past decade. From what I have been able to learn, a lot of people with auto-immune disorders also have food sensitivities and leaky gut. 

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I am bound and determined to do something about it besides take more pills. So yesterday morning I started the diet and I am giving it at least a few months to see how I feel. The plan is to eventually try adding some of the more tolerated foods back in after 5 or 6 months on the diet. The AIP diet is super restrictive to start, since it is an elimination diet, but hopefully I can change my eating habits so I can feel better and be healthier.

Speaking of health, I have had pneumonia for the past three weeks and am now on my second dose of antibiotics (I know, they are not good for me) and I think I may be starting to recover.

Now, off to make a shopping list for my husband so he can spend all of our money at Whole Foods so I can do this right. 

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Beep. Beep. Back it up.

I wanted you to have a little of the back story on the past year, and the events leading up to my recent diagnosis. 

About a year ago, when I was living in a different state, I felt like I had a lump in my throat and the base of my neck felt slightly swollen. I lived with it for a few weeks, but eventually it bothered me enough to go to urgent care, since I couldn’t get in to see my doctor. The doctor at the clinic felt the swelling and said it felt like fat, but it was only a recent occurrence, and I knew better. Nevertheless, she sent me to have blood work and an ultrasound just to be sure. 

A couple of weeks after the tests I am wondering what the results are, so I call the clinic I had gone to and ask if they have my results. They proceed to tell me that I need to make an appointment with my primary care physician (PCP) to get the results. I call to make an appointment and am told that I can’t get one for 2-3 months. This is November and the first available appointment is in February. I explain that I just want to know the results of my tests, but am told that I have to see my PCP. In three months. I tell them I am moving out of the state in a month and that won’t work, but apparently there was nothing they could do.

Fast forward about six months, and the feeling of a lump in my throat and the swelling  is worse. I must have gotten used to it because it really hadn’t been an issue until now. I figured I should probably have it checked, and now I have different insurance and doctors. 

I find out how to get my previous ultrasound results online and print it out to take to my doctor. She looks at it, and at me, and sends me for another ultrasound and blood tests. The original ultrasound showed a nodule on the left thyroid approximately 11mm in diameter, and in the results was recommended biopsy. She wanted me to get another ultrasound to see what was going on, so I went and had one done. The doctor called me to let me know that the nodule had grown (about 4mm) and was suspicious, and she asked if I would be okay with having a biopsy to check it. Of course I was, I wanted to know what was going on. 

The biopsy was done (that is another post, not fun) and the doctor called me that evening. That is where my blog started. Or at least this time. Let’s just pretend this is a brand new blog. 

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The News.

“I have the results of your biopsy.” It was my doctor calling me at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday night, so I knew immediately it wasn’t good news. “Unfortunately it came back as cancer.” Although I knew that the reason for the biopsy was to determine if it was cancer, and I knew that there was a chance it was cancer, the news was still a bit of a shock. 

This “official” diagnosis was on September 10th of this year, and the news had been in the works for the past year, starting with a feeling of a lump in my throat and what I thought felt like a slight swelling at the base of my neck. 

After a visit to my ENT, who verified the diagnosis but with the added information that what the biopsy showed was a 70% chance that it was definitely cancer, I was left with making the decision of what surgery to have: partial or total thyroidectomy. 

Next was a visit with  my endocrinologist, who determined that I also have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, which has caused a fair amount of damage to my thyroid.

Armed with all this information I did the only thing I could think of to do, which was research the hell out of my condition. I read, watched, and absorbed all I could about thyroid cancer, the pros and cons of partial and total thyroidectomy, Hashimoto’s. In the end I decided that a total thyroidectomy was what was best for me. 

Now I wait for surgery.

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Dusting it off.

So...I decided to start blogging again. Yes, it’s been a few years, but life happens, right? It is currently October of 2019, so I let this blog gather dust for a while. I had a recent health issue come up and wanted to start blogging about my experiences, so I figured this would work. If you want to find out more, continue reading.

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So here I go again...

My apologies for the time between this post and the last. A few things have happened. I awoke at one in the morning with an excruciating pain in my lower back. Thinking it was nothing to be concerned about I tried to go back to sleep, but it continued. After an hour or so of pain and vomiting my husband drove me to the emergency room where they determined I had a kidney stone. I have heard and read that passing a kidney stone is akin to labor pains and one of the most painful experiences a human can endure. I have to say it is pretty damn close. 

So after four hours in the E.R. I was sent home with 5 prescriptions. Yes, I said 5. The stone passed another 30 or so hours later, or so I assume since the pain had stopped. Now the next day I had planned on leaving for a short vacation during spring break, so the timing definitely sucked. 

Now that I am back from vacation, and starting to feel better, I need to get back on track. Monday we start all over again...

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The Solution

I think I may have found the solution to my coffee creamer dilemma, but I want to give it a couple days to be sure before I commit. I will share as soon as I know for sure one way or the other, but I am excited about it. 

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My Big Plan

So I wanted to share with you what exactly my plan is for getting healthy, as far as my diet goes. My goal is to feel better and hopefully help with some health issues. I based my plan on several things: 

Research - By research I mean MY research. Scouring articles and blogs on the internet, magazines, television shows, health sites. There is so much information out there and a lot of it is conflicting, so I decided to just make my own plan. 

My Eating Habits - I based the plan on ease of elimination. Meaning that I am choosing to eliminate food groups based on how easy or difficult it will be to do. For ME. This is personal. Everyone has different tastes.

My Goals - My goal is to be healthier, but also to try to eliminate or at least relieve some of my health issues. These include stomach issues (possible IBS, but that’s another story), arthritis (meaning a lot of pain), allergies, and a few others.

So MY plan to eliminate certain foods will go something like this: 

One food group at a time

Four weeks for each group

If there is no change, then I move on to the next group

If there is a small change, still move on to the next group

If there is a big change (for the better), stop

The order I will be eliminating is this: 1) gluten, 2) grains, 3) dairy, 4) FODMAP foods. I arranged these from easiest to eliminate to most difficult (again, for ME).

Thanks for following along on my journey! If you have any questions about what I’m doing and I haven’t covered it in my posts, please comment. 

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So yesterday we decided to try the gluten-free buns at Smashburger. They advertise that they use Udi’s buns. They were actually quite good, although a bit on the dry side. Maybe if they were a little smaller, not so much bun, it would be better. All in all I was happy with my burger. By the way, I got the avocado club. Just in case you were wondering.

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Dinner is served! Made Cracklin’ Chicken from Nom Nom Paleo, which I have actually been making for over a year now. It’s my favorite way to make chicken. To go along with it I threw a bunch of stuff I had already together into this Asian Quinoa Salad. My very first recipe! You can find it here.

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My first breakfast. I was originally going to have what I made for the hubby but decided to make a healthier choice. Glad I did!

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