September 07, 2009
Two Months
How time flies. Today marked 2 months since I had my thyroid surgery. Now I know you're all wondering... well? how's it been? (or maybe not, I have no idea). That means, of course, that I'm going to tell you.
I don't have the least interest in digging back into my archives to find out what I said when or if I even mentioned some of the issues. Therefore, I'll recap and/or add extra stuff all in one post.
If you have no interest - pass on by. If you want the rest, it's below the fold.
Prior to the surgery, I had a big lump just about the place where the Adam's apple sits. (in ultrasound it was measured at 3cm) It wasn't a "goiter" as that is an overall enlargement of the gland. In this case, the gland itself was fine. It was a benign nodule. Unfortunately... or maybe fortunately, this one could be seen (many people have them, but they can't be seen because of where they grow).
About 7 or 8 months prior I had been in for a checkup. If it had been large enough to feel at that time, my doctor would have referred me. (I like her, she's very good). As far as I can tell, it seems to have had some sort of spurt of growth - I'm guessing over the 2-3 months prior to me finding it.
Why would I know this? Because that's about the time I started having very bad night sweats and waking up several times a night along with sudden hot/cold flashes many times a day. Of course at my age, it's all put down to menopause. Other than the discomfort, no one seems to think too much about it. I certainly didn't (other than to be very annoyed).
I decided that the "nodule" bothered me enough being in plain sight, that it needed to go. They consider it mandatory to remove these if they are 4+ cm or (naturally) if they are cancerous. Mine wasn't quite up to standard, but I didn't want to wait around.
The other things I noticed were loud swallowing problems along with needing to clear my throat frequently. These I attributed directly to the nodule (although the doctor who did the surgery insisted the throat clearing could be in no way related - okayfine whatever).
The surgery was a day job. I went in that morning and was back home by 6pm that night. Not too bad. The surgeon did fabulous work! I had no pain at the surgical site (did get a migraine - which is so normal for me I was completely unsurprised). They gave me one injection of narcotic when I was not clear that the pain I had was a migraine. Narcotics don't work on migraines - period. Once I got some IV ibuprofen, all was wonderful except for the narcotic making me dizzy.
They sent me home with pain pills (which I never had to take). The last thing I ever expected was to have no pain at all. It was very odd.
I was back doing Pilates two days after surgery. Of course I have been doing it long enough, know myself well enough, and have an instructor who is able to modify the exercises to accommodate the surgical area. After each class, I felt a leap forward in feeling better. Getting the body moving and getting the anesthesia out was my primary goal.
Two weeks post op, I was back to doing all the normal things. I was massaging the scar area to make it shrink. I still had no pain and no problem with movement - just a bit of tightness in the skin of my neck when lifting my chin. Between weeks 2 and 4 the skin on my neck above the scar became very dry and peeled a bit. I used lots of lotion. For that matter, I'm still putting lots of lotion on a few times a day.
All this time the hot flashes and night sweats were driving me nuts. I was getting very little sleep and was very draggy, sense of humor - eh not good. I got some decent results cutting the night sweats down to a couple times a night by cutting way back on carbs later in the day. It wasn't great and I still had these hot flashes during the day if I didn't have a fan pointed directly at me - even while sitting and typing. Weird.
Then at week six I went to the endocrinologist for his post-op checkup. It takes 6 weeks for thyroid hormone levels to drop. If the remaining bit of thyroid was having issues, that's when it would start to show up. Everything was normal. Blood tests good. He told me he didn't need to see me again unless I developed another thyroid problem.
Later that week, out of the blue, the hot flashes and night sweats suddenly vanished. They are about 90% gone. I have times when I start to feel somewhat warm and I've had one night sweat, but I am now sleeping through the night and am back to how I was feeling a few months prior to finding the lump in my neck. Even feeling like I need to catch up on sleep is normal again. Heh.
I don't "thunk" when I swallow and my throat clearing is considerably better. I have always had some problems with throat clearing because of my bad sinuses. However, I'll take a 50-75% improvement as being much better than before. For me that qualifies.
So there you go. The after action report. It took me 6-7 weeks to start feeling truly normal again after this surgery.
Remember this if you ever have surgery where they have to knock you out and do some slicing and dicing. You will feel better the more you are able to move, but full recovery takes a while. Don't be discouraged it will come about but don't expect it to be in a week or even a month***. The body needs time to get itself back to normal after the trauma of surgery. It does come back though.
***of course I'm talking about the more minor types of surgery that do not involve things like spinal columns, severely broken bones, removal of organs or that type of thing.
I don't have the least interest in digging back into my archives to find out what I said when or if I even mentioned some of the issues. Therefore, I'll recap and/or add extra stuff all in one post.
If you have no interest - pass on by. If you want the rest, it's below the fold.
Prior to the surgery, I had a big lump just about the place where the Adam's apple sits. (in ultrasound it was measured at 3cm) It wasn't a "goiter" as that is an overall enlargement of the gland. In this case, the gland itself was fine. It was a benign nodule. Unfortunately... or maybe fortunately, this one could be seen (many people have them, but they can't be seen because of where they grow).
About 7 or 8 months prior I had been in for a checkup. If it had been large enough to feel at that time, my doctor would have referred me. (I like her, she's very good). As far as I can tell, it seems to have had some sort of spurt of growth - I'm guessing over the 2-3 months prior to me finding it.
Why would I know this? Because that's about the time I started having very bad night sweats and waking up several times a night along with sudden hot/cold flashes many times a day. Of course at my age, it's all put down to menopause. Other than the discomfort, no one seems to think too much about it. I certainly didn't (other than to be very annoyed).
I decided that the "nodule" bothered me enough being in plain sight, that it needed to go. They consider it mandatory to remove these if they are 4+ cm or (naturally) if they are cancerous. Mine wasn't quite up to standard, but I didn't want to wait around.
The other things I noticed were loud swallowing problems along with needing to clear my throat frequently. These I attributed directly to the nodule (although the doctor who did the surgery insisted the throat clearing could be in no way related - okayfine whatever).
The surgery was a day job. I went in that morning and was back home by 6pm that night. Not too bad. The surgeon did fabulous work! I had no pain at the surgical site (did get a migraine - which is so normal for me I was completely unsurprised). They gave me one injection of narcotic when I was not clear that the pain I had was a migraine. Narcotics don't work on migraines - period. Once I got some IV ibuprofen, all was wonderful except for the narcotic making me dizzy.
They sent me home with pain pills (which I never had to take). The last thing I ever expected was to have no pain at all. It was very odd.
I was back doing Pilates two days after surgery. Of course I have been doing it long enough, know myself well enough, and have an instructor who is able to modify the exercises to accommodate the surgical area. After each class, I felt a leap forward in feeling better. Getting the body moving and getting the anesthesia out was my primary goal.
Two weeks post op, I was back to doing all the normal things. I was massaging the scar area to make it shrink. I still had no pain and no problem with movement - just a bit of tightness in the skin of my neck when lifting my chin. Between weeks 2 and 4 the skin on my neck above the scar became very dry and peeled a bit. I used lots of lotion. For that matter, I'm still putting lots of lotion on a few times a day.
All this time the hot flashes and night sweats were driving me nuts. I was getting very little sleep and was very draggy, sense of humor - eh not good. I got some decent results cutting the night sweats down to a couple times a night by cutting way back on carbs later in the day. It wasn't great and I still had these hot flashes during the day if I didn't have a fan pointed directly at me - even while sitting and typing. Weird.
Then at week six I went to the endocrinologist for his post-op checkup. It takes 6 weeks for thyroid hormone levels to drop. If the remaining bit of thyroid was having issues, that's when it would start to show up. Everything was normal. Blood tests good. He told me he didn't need to see me again unless I developed another thyroid problem.
Later that week, out of the blue, the hot flashes and night sweats suddenly vanished. They are about 90% gone. I have times when I start to feel somewhat warm and I've had one night sweat, but I am now sleeping through the night and am back to how I was feeling a few months prior to finding the lump in my neck. Even feeling like I need to catch up on sleep is normal again. Heh.
I don't "thunk" when I swallow and my throat clearing is considerably better. I have always had some problems with throat clearing because of my bad sinuses. However, I'll take a 50-75% improvement as being much better than before. For me that qualifies.
So there you go. The after action report. It took me 6-7 weeks to start feeling truly normal again after this surgery.
Remember this if you ever have surgery where they have to knock you out and do some slicing and dicing. You will feel better the more you are able to move, but full recovery takes a while. Don't be discouraged it will come about but don't expect it to be in a week or even a month***. The body needs time to get itself back to normal after the trauma of surgery. It does come back though.
***of course I'm talking about the more minor types of surgery that do not involve things like spinal columns, severely broken bones, removal of organs or that type of thing.
Posted by: Teresa in
Medical
at
11:11 PM
| Comments (9)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1067 words, total size 6 kb.
1
Glad you're back to normal again... You really didn't post anything negative so I assumed everything was fine!
Posted by: Pam at September 08, 2009 09:00 AM (l6NIn)
2
Like Pam said!
Posted by: JihadGene at September 08, 2009 12:39 PM (lcgZv)
3
Actually I wrote it because I realized there are many people out there who have surgery and are then thinking they should feel completely normal in a very short period of time. I wanted to remind them that it takes a little while to work all this through your system even if the surgery itself seems pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. 
Posted by: Teresa at September 08, 2009 01:22 PM (epSz+)
Posted by: Laura at September 09, 2009 05:01 AM (ua7hq)
5
Laura - good heavens that sounds much like my father. I've been lucky and haven't had too many issues requiring surgery - I just had migraines. Not sure which is worse. LOL.
Posted by: Teresa at September 09, 2009 10:03 AM (epSz+)
6
I wonder if the hot flashes and such were as a result of the anesthesia. I know before it wasn't, but I wonder if the after it was a contributing factor, or it took that long for your body to adjust to the nodule being gone.
I say that only (the first part) because when I had my gall bladder out, I lost ALL appetite for about 6-12 weeks. I lost a lot of weight. I said something to my doc at 6 weeks post op and he said, "It's the anethesia." Some people it has just some weird effects. He told me my appetite would come back in 12 weeks. Sure enough, it did. Odd... I mean, I'm not a big person. But that crap stayed in my body, altered it for THREE MONTHS.
Posted by: Bou at September 09, 2009 10:10 PM (vkUMO)
7
Oh yes I'm sure it is. That's why I wanted to blog it. Because people don't realize how long recovery takes. But once it's out of the system, it's like hitting a switch and things go back to normal. LOL.
I didn't lose my appetite at all, which rather surprised me. I thought it might change my sense of taste. But no, it was hot flashes. While everything readjusted. I'm glad that's over, but now I'm back to being cold a lot. So I can't win.
I didn't lose my appetite at all, which rather surprised me. I thought it might change my sense of taste. But no, it was hot flashes. While everything readjusted. I'm glad that's over, but now I'm back to being cold a lot. So I can't win.
Posted by: Teresa at September 09, 2009 10:14 PM (epSz+)
8
Thank God! Thank God.
Posted by: Da Goddess at September 12, 2009 05:45 AM (yS1tB)
9
Whew. Glad things are so much better.
Posted by: Sissy Willis at September 13, 2009 06:38 PM (cdtTx)
25kb generated in 0.0439 seconds; 71 queries returned 155 records.
Powered by Minx 1.1.4-pink.
Powered by Minx 1.1.4-pink.
