Power of Positivity

 (please excuse the expletive)

I haven't posted an update in some time because there really hasn't been much to post about. The first news that I don't think I shared here on the blog is that my scan that was done on Oct. 11th came back negative for any cancer cells. Ecstatic doesn't begin to describe the feeling I got when I received the email from my endocrinologist.

So, what does that mean for the future of my treatments?

It means that all I have to deal with now is adjusting my medication every few months, continuing to follow up with my endocrinologist, and go for one more scan next October. Funny that I'll see him more than I see my dentist and my PCP. I've been on the same amount of levothyroxine for 2 1/2 months now and I'm feeling great. I haven't had much of any changes in symptoms that you'd typically expect of supposedly being in hyperthyroidism (which is where they want me to be in order to suppress any possible return of cancer cells). I was hoping it'd help me lose weight, but no such luck. Occasionally I'll have a bout of insomnia where I'll wake up at 3am and can't go back to sleep or I'll be wide awake until 1am. However, when I was severely hypo, I didn't feel much of anything either, so who knows where I currently am in terms of my blood work and T3, T4, and TSH. I go on 12/21 for my blood test and then I have the follow up on 12/30 to determine if any change needs to happen with my medication. The only difficulty has been remembering to wait an hour after I take my meds in the morning before eating anything. You bet I'm watching the clock like a hawk! I don't know that I'll ever get used to not eating immediately upon waking, but that's my new normal now and it usually means I eat breakfast quite late or on the go. Not ideal, but it is what it is.

My scar is healing up very nicely and I'm very pleased with the progress. For about 5 weeks, I used Mederma. I noticed that my scar started to itch and that all around the scar was red. It was still puffy despite the ENT telling me it would go down. I started using ScarAway strips during the day and Vit E oil at night. The bumpiness and redness went away within a week.

This was taken on Oct 27th.

This is today.

I've become a little bit more relaxed about putting my ScarAway strips on (unless I know I'm going to be in the sun), but I'm still using Vit E oil at night. Hopefully in a few more months, it'll be barely noticeable.

Now on to a slightly different topic.

As the end of the 7th semester of PT school quickly approaches, I reflect back on the last 2 or 3 years and think that this journey has been anything but easy for me. PT school is freaking hard. It's even harder when you add juggling a family into that mix. Then, it's even harder when you have to deal with cancer. BUT, there are several things that have kept me going through feeling like I was going to fail and why am I doing this and why am I putting myself and my family through these tough times. What are those? My husband, my family, my dearest friends (especially Luciana because she's the only one who has truly understood exactly what going to school and juggling a family feels like and is going through it right there with me - we're almost done...almost done...), my classmates, etc. However, the ONE thing that I feel that has really and truly gotten me to where I am is the power of positivity. For the first 2 years of HG's life, things were dark and hard. After listening to myself, I realized I wouldn't be friends with me if I had to hear what I was saying all the time. So for all of you who had to deal with me, I apologize from the bottom of my heart. I wish I could go back and re-do things. I didn't feel like my old self. You know...the me before HG. The one who loved life. I have never really been a negative person and I hated myself for thinking that way. I had to take a step back and look at myself as an outsider and when I did that, I realized that my negativity was not only affecting myself, but my relationships. I made a decision at that moment that I was going to change my ATTITUDE because all you can really change is yourself. I took the positivity pledge.

Changing my attitude from negative to positive made a world of difference in how I felt about myself, how I interacted with others, and how others viewed me. I realized that after I changed my attitude, my whole world changed for the better. I was happier. I was enjoying my child (for the most part 😜). I was enjoying my family. I was enjoying my time spent with friends. I was enjoying being me. Does this mean that I never had negative thoughts? No. But they became few and far between and I shared them with my husband, my rock, and he helped talk me through my feelings. Don't get me wrong...this change was NOT easy. It took time. It took conscious effort to change my thinking. Sometimes I had to fake being positive to trick myself. Fake it til you make it! (If you have some time to watch these two TED talks, I highly recommend watching them: 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XFLTDQ4JMk and 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVmMeMcGc0Y ). Seriously. Watch them. Starting small and thinking at the end of the day of at least 1 positive thing helps tremendously. Start somewhere and it's like a snowball effect. Eventually, I saw so many more positive things in my life than I had seen in the 2+yrs prior.

I also noticed that the patients in the clinic who were happy and had a positive outlook, even when their situation might not have been very good, had much better outcomes and progressed faster and were discharged faster than those who had negative attitudes or who perseverated on their ailment.

So, how does this tie into my thyroid cancer? I don't have any doubt in my mind that keeping a positive outlook on something as terrible as the C word helped keep me sane. It didn't and doesn't do me or anyone else any good to be negative, so why not just be positive?

This semester has been pretty chill and very low-stress (something that I definitely needed). Besides getting my necessary school work done and being in class 3 days a week, I have been filling my days with taking care of myself mentally, emotionally, and physically (yay for exercise!!), having lunch with old friends, meeting new friends, spending time with friends, spending time with my son and my husband, going on family walks, doing exercise with my family (tennis isn't THAT terrible), and just overall enjoying my life right now.

Until next time! And remember, only YOU have the power to change YOURSELF. 😘

RAI and scar management

It's been a while since the last update and I've been getting texts and calls to see how I'm doing, so I thought it was probably time to inform everyone how things have been going.

On Sept 27th, I went to see my ENT for my final post-op appointment. We discussed scar management and I was instructed to apply Mederma three times a day and massage the scar each time I apply the cream for 6-8 weeks. This should allow the scar to fade into my formerly existing neck crease over time in hopes that it disappears completely. Luckily, in PT school, we learn about scar massage and have to teach it to post-op patients in the clinic, so this wasn't anything new to me. I have doubts though that my scar will become "invisible" per se, but I know it takes a long time for it to look better than it does currently. Also during this appointment, I told him that I was a little nervous that I wouldn't be eligible for the radioactive iodine (RAI) treatment that Friday (Sept 30th) because I had still been feeling pretty normal. He told me that the blood work will determine whether or not I was ready, so I can't ever go by how I feel. According to members of the thyroid cancer community as well as other bloggers, before going through RAI, you go though a period of what is known as "hypo-hell". Symptoms during hypo hell can range from extreme fatigue, lethargy, lack of joy, hazy thinking, muscle aches, nausea, insomnia, flu-like symptoms, forgetfulness, brain fog, and emotional challenges (depression, mood swings, etc). Many people need to stop driving and get help with children during this hypo hell period. I really thought that since none of this applied to me, that I really wasn't ready. I went for my blood work on Wednesday and trekked over to the endocrinologist's office early on Friday since my appointment was at 7:30am. I hadn't received a call from the office saying whether or not I was good to go, so I was prepared for them to tell me anything. The doctor came in to the room and told me that my blood work came back in favor of doing the RAI (my thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) was in the 50's and it only needs to be above 30 for being eligible for the RAI. By the way - normal TSH levels are between 0.4 and 4 to give you an idea for how out of the range you need to be in order to be eligible). When you don't have a thyroid or your thyroid isn't working properly and you are in hypothyroidism, there is little or no T3 or T4 that is being released, so your anterior pituitary releases TSH because it's trying to stimulate the thyroid to release T3 and T4 to achieve homeostasis.  The more TSH you have, the more hypo you are. Iodine is absorbed by the thyroid and thyroid cells, so you want to be in hypo and "deprived" of iodine so there is more chance of your body up-taking the radioactive material and killing any remaining thyroid tissue and cancer cells. (Thank you Dr. Katy Mitchell for teaching me this in Internal Medicine because the endocrine system really makes way more sense now that I have to go through all of this!)

Anyway, moving on...
The doctor made sure I knew all the precautions and took me to a separate room and watched me swallow the 50 mCi radioactive iodine pill. I sat in that room for about 15 minutes and he came back to check if I was radioactive by checking with a Geiger-Mueller tube or Geiger counter.



He said I was good to go and I went home. When I got home, I packed up all of my things, loaded them into my car, wiped down every single thing I touched, went to Kroger to pick up my levothyroxine (thyroid hormone replacement) prescription and headed to my dad's house where I stayed the entire weekend from Friday morning until Monday day. Some of the precautions I had to take were to stay 6ft away from everyone, wash hands before and after every single thing I did, flush the toilet twice, wipe down the toilet after every use, use separate towels and washcloths, let the water run for a few minutes after washing my hands, brushing my teeth, and taking a shower, and not share dishes/silverware with anyone. I also had to wash all of my clothes and towels that I used during the quarantine twice and separate from other loads of laundry. Since I have a clingy 4yr old that can't stay 6ft away from his momma for 3 days (mostly because he wouldn't understand), I stayed away from them all weekend. My dad was going out of town anyway, so I had his house and theater room all to myself.



Sunday, Oct 2nd, I was instructed to begin my levothyroxine medication and I was told I could resume my normal diet. I had been feeling pretty good all weekend except for a day of low appetite, a bit of loneliness (which was remedied by chatting with people on the phone, Skyping often with my husband and son, and watching the rest of GoT), and Sunday feeling pretty tired due to some insomnia and not sleeping well on Saturday night. I got some good rest on Sunday day and Sunday night, so Monday I felt normal again. I was also excited to be able to go home and see my family. Even though I was cleared for going home, there were still some precautions I had to take upon my return. My doctor suggested that I use a separate bathroom for another few days and I was told to sleep in a separate bed from my husband for a week and child for 2 weeks. This has been the hardest because my child wakes up easily when he is left to sleep by himself (hello 5am wake ups) and I never really can sleep the best when I can't sleep in my own bed. Needless to say, everyone was happy to have me home...even my cats.



I've been taking my son to daycare during the day, so there's not much time for him to be close to me except for about 2 hours or so in the evenings, and even then, he's not sitting on my lap the whole time.

Yesterday, I had my nuclear body scan that lets the doctor know if there's any remaining thyroid tissue or cancer cells. I laid down on this machine and it took about 45 minutes to do the entire procedure. I had to lay still (nap time) and the machine very slowly moved me while taking pictures and then the last 10 minutes was where the machine stayed in the same spot and was just a scan of my neck and chest area. Normally, there's an injection of iodine that is done a few hours prior to the scan, but since I had taken the RAI on Sept 30th, there was no need for me to get the injection. I will have to get the injection next year when I have my follow up scan to determine if I've remained cancer-free. After the scan was over, I asked the technician to use the Geiger counter again to see how radioactive I still was. She had to be about 2 inches from me in order to pick up any radioactivity, so she said by Friday, I'll be fine to resume sleeping in my own bed with my child. Yay for sleep! And hopefully I'll get the results of this scan by the end of the week.

Here are some scar pictures to show some of the progress over the last 2 weeks using the Mederma cream and doing the scar massage.


Sept 27th - Day 1 using Mederma cream


Oct 4th - Day 8


Oct 12th - Day 16

While it is lightening up a bit and it's definitely less red, there's still a ways to go and I want it to be less bumpy and raised.

Today is also day 11 taking the levothyroxine. I have to take it in the morning about an hour or so before I eat anything. That's been slightly annoying and I will have to really get used to it because I like eating something when I wake up in the mornings. Once classes start back up next week, I'll probably have to pack my breakfast to go and either eat in the car or once I get to school. Also, since I didn't really feel weird and super hypo before taking the medication, I haven't really noticed a difference hormone-wise. I do feel like I want to get back into working out on a regular basis (which will be easier to do once I have access to my school's gym again next week), so there's that. I feel like I'm super weak because I haven't done any of my strength exercises (or cardio for that matter) since before my surgery. I really need to get back on my MommaStrong workouts again.

My next appointment is at the end of December with my endocrinologist to check my hormone levels and see if there's any medication adjustment that needs to be done. He put me on a pretty aggressive dose to start with (150mcg) to throw me into hyperthyroidism and will back me down from that depending on my blood work mid-December. I will always rest in a slight hyper state because he says it actually helps keeps cancer cells from returning.

There's not much else to report for now, so, all in all, things have been going well and I've been feeling pretty good overall.

Until next time!

Low-Iodine Diet

This blog entry is all about the food I've been preparing and eating the last couple of days. Some of you may not care about this, but I wanted to create a blog post for anyone searching the net for vegetarian recipe ideas on the low-iodine diet prior to their radioactive iodine treatment. 

These days have been overtaken by cooking. I absolutely love to cook, so this was a fun adventure for me. And luckily, I'm not in school, working, or on a clinical rotation right now, and my son goes to daycare during the day, so I have a lot of time on my hands to make all sorts of new recipes. There are some things that I miss eating on this diet...like cheese and olives...oh...and eating out, but I'm surviving :-P . Amazing how many things have salt (and iodine) in them! But this diet basically eliminates all processed foods and a few non-processed foods as well like rhubarb (which I don't ever eat anyway), potato skins, and a few types of beans (kidney, lima, pinto, navy, and cowpeas). Also, since most canned beans have salt, they recommend making your own. For a full list of things I'm not allowed to eat, here's the document link: 
http://www.thyca.org/download/document/229/Cookbook1pgEng.pdf

It's not too bad if you cook most of your food at home and are already a pretty healthy eater like I am. If I were cooking and working or going to school or on rotation, I don't think this would be very easy to do. 

Here are the things I've been making (links provided if available since I pulled some things from the Ten Talents Vegetarian Cookbook - TTVCB):

*Note: Any salt called for in a recipe, I used Morton Non-Iodized Salt
*Another note: I already have to eat non-wheat products due to my wheat allergy, so I make all of my food gluten-free using Bob's Red Mill flours and buy gluten-free pasta. Tinkyada brand is my favorite and luckily, has no salt in their pastas.

• Homemade tomato sauce (for pasta): Found in the TTVCB
• Banana bread (http://cookieandkate.com/2015/healthy-banana-bread-recipe/ I subbed Bob's Red Mill GF baking flour since there are no dairy or eggs in his mixes and I used my homemade cashew milk instead of the milk or water listed here. I also used flax eggs instead of regular eggs.)
• Cashew milk - TTVCB
• Almond milk - TTVCB (store bought is a no-no since 99% of processed nut milks contain sea salt and/or carrageenan which is an extract of red seaweed)
• Vegetable broth (I have been saving my vegetable scraps for a few months now in a bag in the freezer and I put all the scraps in my crock pot, added enough water to cover the scraps,  added some non-iodized salt, a bay leaf, and half an onion, and cooked on high for 10 hours. In the morning, I strained the broth and dumped the veggies in my compost bin.)
• Quinoa Tabouleh - I used 2 bunches of parsley pulsed in food processor, 4 tomatoes diced, 1 green bell pepper diced, 3 cups cooked quinoa, juice of 2-3 limes, and salt to taste (this was my own creation and you can actually find a lot of really good recipes out there, but they call for other ingredients like mint and green onions, which I am not really a huge fan of in my tabouleh)
• White kidney beans cooked in pressure cooker (http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-cook-beans-in-a-stovetop-pressure-cooker-193867 for aromatics and  http://www.hippressurecooking.com/pressure-cooking-times/ for cooking times)
• Black beans cooked in pressure cooker (see above links)
• Lentil soup (http://cookieandkate.com/2015/vegan-lentil-soup-recipe/ This recipe calls for canned diced tomatoes. Originally I was going to use fresh tomatoes, but Sprouts actually had no salt added canned diced tomatoes, so I bought those instead and I used my homemade vegetable broth)

So what does my typical food day look like? *Note: This is how I eat the majority of the time, it's just a little more involved since I'm having to make my own pasta sauce, milk, and beans.

Breakfast:

• Oatmeal cooked with raisins and added a small amount of coconut oil, raw organic honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a handful of chopped walnuts and a splash of my almond milk

     or

• Protein smoothie: 1 scoop of RAW Protein and Greens powder, approx 1 1/2 cups of mixed fruit (I like strawberries, blueberries, mango, banana, peaches, etc), 1-1 1/2 cups of my homemade nut milk, 2 Tbsp ground flax seeds, 1 Tbsp chia seeds, ice (if not using frozen fruit), blend and add water to make it more smooth.

Snacks: 

• Sliced apple with unsalted almond or cashew butter 

     or 

• Banana with a handful of pecans, walnuts, almonds, or cashews

     or

• Air popped popcorn using my popcorn maker sprinkled with coconut oil, non-iodized salt, and nutritional yeast

Lunch: 

• Tinkyada pasta with my homemade sauce sprinkled with nutritional yeast and a side salad consisting of spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, mini sweet bell peppers, drizzled with olive oil, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and lime juice

     or

• A bowl of my quinoa tabouleh

     or

• Lentil soup

Dinner:

• Cooked rice topped with the pressure cooked beans (I like to add some of the bean juice as well), steamed green beans, and fresh chopped tomatoes

     or

• Sweet potato (no skin), egg whites or beans, and steamed broccoli or any steamed vegetable (peas, artichoke, asparagus, green beans, etc)

     or

• Any of the items listed for lunch

Follow up appointments: Tuesday 9/20/16

I'm a few days late to the update, but I've been busy with school work, cooking, and continuing to attempt to catch up with Game of Thrones.

On Tuesday morning, my mom and I went to my follow up appt with the ENT who did my surgery. He removed my SteriStrips and stitches. We discussed "wound" care and I have to clean it twice a day with hydrogen peroxide to break up the scabs and follow with Bactroban (antibiotic ointment). Ever since taking a wound care class, I've had a hard time even opening that hydrogen peroxide bottle, but I'm following doctor's orders. Also at the appt, we discussed the results of my pathology report. He told me that he actually did remove 12 lymph nodes during surgery (even though I swear he told me none had to be removed) and all of them were directly posterior to my thyroid. The pathology report came back with only 1/12 as being malignant and it was completely contained within that node. I did not have any cancer in the blood supply to the thyroid and the 4 cm nodule was almost completely malignant, but it was completely contained and found no where else in the thyroid. This is good since it means that I'm in the low-risk category for recurrence. He informed me that I will still have to go through the radioactive iodine treatment because of the size of the tumor, but the chances of my cancer coming back after that are very extremely slim. I have a follow up with him again next week to talk about scar management and so he can see how my scar is healing up after doing my wound care for a week. Taking the SteriStrips off hurt worse than the actual removal of the stitches.

After going to the ENT, my mom and I headed to my school and saw my school director and a few of the students in the class below me. They signed a card for me and my little (mentee) gave it to me. It was so sweet of them and was great to see some familiar smiling faces!

My mom and I then had lunch and headed to the endocrinologist appointment. The endo discussed the process for the RAI, the low-iodine diet, my blood work, and post-RAI expectations. He takes a very laid-back approach to the whole thing (which is kinda a relief). He told me that as long as I don't eat a lot of seafood or sea products like nori (which I don't), soy (which I stopped eating in July after I found out about my enlarged thyroid), or a lot of processed foods (which I eat very minimally), he said that I would be fine eating low-iodine for one week instead of two. He scheduled me to take the RAI pill on Sept 30 and I will need to stay about 6ft distance from people for 3 days. I will not be able to sleep in the same bed as my husband for 7 days and 21 days for sleeping in the same bed as HG. HG will have a much harder time with this than I will for sure! Just after 3 days of me sleeping in a separate room/bed than him after surgery, he was coming to find me at 2am. :-/  If anyone has any suggestions on how to keep him out of whatever bed I'm sleeping in, that would be helpful (he will already be sleeping with my husband). 

Anyway, I will have blood work done on Sept 28th to check my thyroid levels and if they are ideal for RAI, I will continue with my scheduled appt on the 30th. If not, I will take the RAI pill at the beginning of the following week on Oct 3rd. I have a full body scan scheduled for Oct 11th (HG's birthday). I don't know if they give me the results right after, or if I have to wait to hear if I have cancer elsewhere or if the RAI took care of any residual cancer cells. My hope is that I will be cancer-free, whether I hear the news that day or another day. I will then have another scan done in a year to determine if I remain cancer-free. The endocrinologist also said that there have been updates with the amount of time allowed for getting pregnant after RAI. They used to say 2yrs is ideal, but they are now saying 6mos is enough time and is safe. I do not even want to think about it until my second scan a year from now is over, but at least we don't have to wait 2 yrs as anticipated before. :-) He also sent me for blood work to check my calcium levels and turns out they were high. So he had me stop my Rocaltrol/Calcitrol and just continue with my 1,000mg of TUMS 3x/day. This is good news because it means that my parathyroids have started kicking in and doing their job!

All in all, I feel that the appointments went well. My scar isn't pretty right now, but it's definitely healing. 

Tuesday - day of stitches removal













Wednesday - day 2













Thursday - day 3












I spent today in the kitchen prepping food for my low-iodine diet which I started today (yes I still have energy surprisingly and haven't felt fatigued like I hear will happen at some point before RAI). I made banana bread, spaghetti sauce, cashew milk, poppy seed dressing, and a salad (which I ate for lunch). I had the spaghetti sauce for dinner over some pasta with a side salad and the sauce was really good! Tomorrow, I'm going to pull up the low-iodine cookbook and see about making some potato salads they have in there. The hardest part about this diet is that I can't eat out at all, all processed and canned foods are out (black olives are a no-no since they come from a can...waaaahhhhhh!), and no dairy products can be consumed. I can eat eggs, but only the whites. I have to only used non-iodized salt (I'm upset about this because I LOVE my pink Himalayan sea salt).  I will have to cook my own beans, which isn't a bad thing, but I've just never really been successful at making them. They always turn out not quite done (even after cooking them for ungodly amounts of time in the crock pot). Oh well...maybe I'll finally be able to conquer the one thing that doesn't go well for me in the kitchen.

That's all for now. Until next post...

Days 2-5 post surgery update

Since my surgery on Monday, things have been pretty good. I was released from the hospital shortly after I published the last entry on Tuesday afternoon. My calcium levels looked good and I was given the go around 4pm. I was wheeled out by my awesome PCA, Dennis, followed by my mom and dad and HG in my lap around 5:15 or 5:30pm.

I got home to a beautiful care package. 














A woman who has been through this journey a few years ago and is a former student of a professor of mine sent me a lot of really useful and thoughtful things. I've never met her, but have spoken to her on the phone and texted back and forth and she has been a really great support for me. Thank you, Brooke and thank you, Dr. Ellison for putting us in touch! I have been introduced to others who have gone through this as well and I can't thank them enough for the support and peace of mind they have given me! You know who you are...thank you from the bottom of my heart! 

Ok...anyway, I was instructed by my ENT to start that evening on Cefprozil (antibiotic) as a precautionary measure even though I had antibiotics through my IV in the hospital, take my Calcitrol, TUMS, and whatever pain meds as needed. I did exactly as I was told, set up my son's bed (since he sleeps in our bed) to accommodate my pillow needs, ate dinner, took my medication and only one pain pill to see if it would help me sleep and went to bed.

Wednesday morning, I woke up nauseous. I ate some oatmeal and yogurt, but I didn't eat much since I wasn't feeling so good. I had no idea what was wrong because I had been feeling pretty good up until that point and had no nausea what so ever. Shortly after breakfast, I ended up throwing up twice. I called the ENT's nurse and left a message. She called me back not long after and told me she would talk with the doctor and call me back. I took my second Cefprozil at 9:30am, I fell asleep for 2.5hrs, woke up and threw up again. I felt terrible and throwing up hurt not only my already sore throat from the breathing tube during surgery, but my incision as well! It all hurt like HELL! I ended up taking 2 Tylenol (instead of the hydrocodone) to help with the pain. I called the ENT nurse again and this time when she called me, she explained that the doctor thought it was actually the antibiotics that were causing my nauseousness and to go ahead and stop taking them. He said that should help and I probably won't have any more incidences of vomiting. As a preventative measure, he called in a Rx for Zofran (anti-nausea). That afternoon, I ate some crackers and drank ginger ale to help with my stomach and ended up keeping that down. I ate rice for dinner and kept that down as well. My stomach felt ok, but I took a Zofran before bed just in case. 

The next morning, I woke up feeling great! It was my husband's birthday, so I was hoping that I felt good enough to do something with him in the evening because this was the big 4-0 for him! I had to go get blood work done for my endocrinologist appointment, so I decided that I would attempt to take a shower and finally wash my hair. It was a little tricky, but with an Aqua Guard, lots of tape, and being very careful, I was successful in keeping water off of my incision. It felt good to finally take a shower!


Blood work was not fun. The phlebotomist who drew my blood was terrible. She rushed, poked all the way through my vein, kept moving the needle all around trying to get the blood to come out faster, and then when she took the needle out, she drug it across my arm slightly leaving a scratch, didn't cover it with a gauze right away, and blood dripped out onto my arm. This is the bruise I still have today from that...



I went home, started watching Game of Thrones (I know I'm late...) and got through 3 episodes and took a long 2 hour nap. I woke up feeling pretty refreshed and got dressed and joined my family and a good friend for dinner for my husband at his favorite restaurant. We had a great time, but just sitting there got tiring after 2 hours and I was pretty ready to go home at that point.



That evening, I took 2 Tylenol, but mostly as a precautionary measure just in case I did something funny in the middle of the night with my neck and it had been feeling pretty sore and stiff from not being able to move it much. 

Friday morning, I was feeling great. My husband took off work and we spent the day doing stuff. We took our son to the roller rink. I just sat and watched, but it was fun to see them enjoying the roller rink. 



After that, my mom had a hair appointment and we all went over there and I sat and chatted. We met with my dad for lunch and then headed home for a nap. I slept for 2 hours and felt really rested after I woke up. Since my son decided he didn't want to nap, he got to go to bed early and my husband, mom, and I stayed up and watched Batman vs. Superman. We stayed up until 2am! Guess that late nap really gave me energy!

I woke up this morning and again, I feel great. I took another shower and washed my hair. This is what I have to go through to ensure my incision site stays dry... 


The pain in my throat while swallowing has pretty much subsided and I haven't taken any Tylenol since Thursday. I still can't move my head (doctor's orders) much. The only thing now is I feel like I'm just waiting for when I feel like I've "run out" of hormones. I have a follow up appointment with my ENT on Tuesday morning to remove the SteriStrips and stitches and then an appointment Tuesday afternoon with my endocrinologist to discuss my blood work, my calcium supplement taper schedule and whether or not I have to do the RAI afterall. If I do have to do the RAI treatment, I will probably have to start my 2 week low-iodine diet at that time. If not, he will probably start me on synthroid. We shall see! I'll probably update again after that. 

Until the next post...

Surgery 9-12-16

The day before surgery, I had to stop all food and liquids at midnight. I knew I was going to be very thirsty since my surgery wasn't scheduled until 12:30pm the next day. That's a long time for me to go without food or water. So, I grabbed a huge movie theater cup we have (thanks to my husband who likes to keep these kinds of things) and proceeded to drink 2.5 of these throughout the afternoon and evening before I went to bed.



For dinner, my mom made baked potatoes, salad, and black beans, which filled me up nicely. I took my shower with the antibacterial cleansing soap the hospital gave me to wash with and off to bed I went. 

When I woke up, I was thirsty and hungry, but I tried to distract myself from thinking about food or water by packing my hospital bag. I took my second shower with the antibacterial cleansing soap and changed into my loose clothing. My mom, sister, husband and I all took HG to daycare and off to the hospital we went in a 3 car caravan. I was very nervous because I had never been under general anesthesia before, but my mom, dad, and several other friends who have gone under before reassured me everything would be ok. 

When we got to the hopsital, we went to the front desk and told them I was here for surgery. They sent me to the second floor where I was immediately escorted with my husband to the AOD area (pre-op prep room). I changed into a gown, they took a urine sample, the anesthesiologist put my IV in my arm, and we waited...for 2 hours. The nurses that were going to help with the surgery came in and introduced themselves and got my saline started. The doctor came in around 12:30pm to say hi and check that everything was squared away with what surgery we were going to do. Then, the anesthesiologist's nurse came and gave me the "margarita". It only made me feel slightly dizzy, but not that good feeling you're supposed to have. I guess I was on such high alert that it didn't affect me much. They wheeled me to the OR and I transferred myself to the operating table and laid my head on the pillow. The anesthesiologist started mentioning the things she was injecting into my IV and then she said, "Now here comes the good stuff." It was this white liquid and within a few seconds I was out. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in the recovery room. The nurse put a washcloth over my eyes and drew some blood (which I don't remember her doing that because I couldn't feel a thing and couldn't see because of the washcloth). After she removed the washcloth, it took me about 5 or 10 minutes and then I was wide awake. It was 4:15pm. She was very surprised at how alert I was given that I had just come out of surgery. I knew they had done something because there was a bandage on my neck and a drain coming out of the side, but I was in no pain, and of course, I didn't remember anything. They called my husband back to see me and the doctor came and talked to me about the surgery. He said it went much better (and quicker) than anticipated and I had minimal bleeding, my nerves were not damaged at all during the surgery, and they didn't have to remove any lymph nodes! He also told my family that once the pathology report comes back, he and the endocrinologist will discuss whether or not radioactive iodine treatment is necessary. Then, he asked me some questions, I asked him some questions, and he said, "You are the most sharp, alert patient I have ever had that just came out of surgery. Most people are super groggy and not with it." 



After about 45 minutes in PACU (recovery), they wheeled me to my room. My caravan of family were with me (dad, sis, and husband) except my mom who had the duty of picking up HG from daycare, taking him home to eat, and then bringing him up to the hospital to see me. Once I got settled in my room, my dear friend April came to visit. We had a nice time chit chatting and it was good to see her crazy self.



HG and my mom showed up later and he ate his dinner and got to sit on my lap and watch some of his videos on the phone. Around 8pm, everyone but my mom left. I started to get a tingly feeling in my hands and feet and I knew my calcium levels were getting low. My calcium wasn't due until 9pm, so we waited. I got to walk around a bit which felt nice. Once the anesthesia wore off, I started to have some pain in my throat, like I had strep throat, but it was from the breathing tube that they put in and took out during surgery. It was bearable for a while, but as the evening went on, swallowing became very painful. My incision site didn't hurt much at all (probably about a 1/10). I ended up asking for a pain pill around 10:30pm thinking that would help me sleep. But, I was wide awake. I tried to lay in darkness with my eyes closed, but ended up not really falling asleep until close to 1am after they took my vitals and the tingling in my hands and feet subsided. I woke up at 4:15am and was wide awake. They took my vitals again at 4:30am and took blood at 5am to check my calcium levels. My drain wasn't full, but they emptied it anyway. At 6:45am, the doctor came by to see me and removed my drain.














He said my calcium levels were still too low, so they were going to increase my dose and dosage to hopefully help bring them back up. He said they didn't give me enough last night, which is why I was having the tingling in my hands and feet (which I knew it was because my calcium was low). They gave me more calcium at 7am (it was originally supposed to be at 9am, but since it was low, he wanted me to have some right then). He said they would give me more calcium at lunch time and take my blood again around 2pm. At that point, they would decide if my levels were ideal enough to send me home.

My mom and HG were coming up to visit me before he got dropped off at daycare and he really wanted to eat breakfast with me, so my mom brought his breakfast and we had a picnic in my room on my bed. <3



I was also able to walk around for about 15 minutes to give my legs some exercise and stretch a bit. By the end of breakfast, I could hardly swallow again, so I asked for another pain pill. That gave me just enough relief so I could stand drinking any water. Once my mom left to take HG to daycare, I took a good 2 hour nap. I really needed it since last night's sleep was not very good quality. I then ordered lunch and took my second calcium for the day. At 2pm, they came by and took my blood to be sent off to see how my calcium levels are looking. At this point, I'm still waiting to hear back on whether or not I'm allowed to go home. 

Overall, I feel pretty good. I'm taking it easy and following all of the doctor's orders. The staff here at Methodist have been wonderful and my doctor has been great as well. So far, I've had a really good experience, but I'm definitely ready to be in my own bed!

Beginning of my thyroid journey

This is going to be quite a long post since it's the first one. I'll start from the beginning.

In July, when I was on my clinical rotation in Austin, I noticed my neck looked swollen on the left. I thought this was very strange, but I also wasn't sure if I was seeing things since I had never noticed it look like that before. Maybe it was my shirt that accentuated that part of my neck? How long has it been swollen...weeks, months? I was baffled, but being in PT school, I knew that it was where my thyroid should be. I leaned my head back to check my thyroid size and, sure enough, my left thyroid was slightly larger than my right. 

I asked around and everyone told me to go see a doc just in case. I got in to see a doc in Austin by the end of that week and they did blood work and an ultrasound. I explained to her that I felt like I had some symptoms of hypothyroidism, but I've had those for a while and I always have a reason for them, so it didn't really strike me as something I should have been concerned about until now that I noticed my enlarged thyroid. My blood work came back normal. The ultrasound, on the other hand, detected a mass that she said was 1.5cm in size. She wanted to do a biopsy because of it being larger than 1.3cm. I didn't want to continue my care in Austin, since I don't live there and commuting back and forth for thyroid stuff is dumb, so when I came back to Houston and saw my regular doc at the beginning of August, he referred me to an ENT. I saw the ENT on the 15th and he agreed about the biopsy and I had that done on Wednesday, the 24th. The ENT office called me Thursday and scheduled me in Friday the 26th to discuss my results. Never once did I think it would be cancer because every single doctor said, "The likelihood that it is cancer is very slim (5%) and you shouldn't worry about this at all...I'm sure it's nothing. They are almost always benign."

Friday morning, August 26th, the day before my 35th birthday, I went in to the office and I was very nervous. My blood pressure was sky high! I sat down in the exam room and he came in. He sat down and said, "Well, the biopsy came back as positive for thyroid cancer." Wait...what? Did he just tell me I have cancer? I'm young, healthy, do everything I can to take care of myself health wise, I hardly ever go to the doctor because I'm rarely sick, what?! This really isn't happening to me. This is a bad dream and I'm going to wake up tomorrow and this will all have been a dream. The next thing I heard him say was, "It's treatable and curable". So yes, I have papillary thyroid carcinoma. Luckily, I am young and the diagnosis was the best I could have received because this is the least invasive and most curable cancer. However, I am now going to have to have my whole thyroid removed because they can't risk cancer coming back on the other side. He wanted me to have surgery by mid-September. I told him if we could wait until October, that would be better because I was supposed to start my clinical rotation that next Monday. He wasn't too happy about me saying that, but he said we could work with that if that's what we have to do. 

After the appointment, I had to figure out what was going to happen with school. I spoke to the director at my school and she gave me an option for the remainder of my program. I could defer this clinical rotation and get all my medical stuff dealt with now. Go to classes with all of my classmates in October like normal. Do my clinical rotation that should have been done now in January instead of my internship. Walk in May with my classmates. Do my internship in the summer and get my paper diploma in August after I'm through with my internship. At first, I absolutely did not want to do this because I have been in this program long enough and I just want to be done. She told me that missing classes in October for a week is NOT possible because that would be like missing 3-4 weeks of classes since it's a short semester. So, after speaking with my parents about it, I took her up on her offer. This will set me back slightly with school, but not too much and I can still take the board exams in July if I want to or I'm feeling ready for them. The boards are also offered in October, so I could do that if I needed to. I'm feeling at peace with my decision about school and glad I'm not doing my rotation right now because dealing with the tremendous amount of doctor appointments would have been a nightmare if I were in the clinic. 

I saw my endocrinologist for the first time on Aug 31st. He was very nice and he is one of two doctors in the office that treat patients post-thyroid cancer. He spent a lot of time with me and explained everything so calmly. During that visit, he did another ultrasound to ensure that the cancer hasn't spread to my lymph nodes. Turns out my mass was actually measuring 4cm! That's HUGE! He only found one lymph node that was enlarged with something questionable (the rest looked good), so he did a biopsy of that one. All in all, it was a positive visit and I felt encouraged about the life-long relationship I will now have with an endocrinologist. I have heard horror stories of people switching endocrinologists many times until they found the right one for them because the endocrinologist just looks at the numbers and not them as a person and how they're feeling. I hear the hardest part of this entire journey is finding the right balance of medication to make you feel semi-normal again. I'm honestly not looking forward to taking medication every day for my entire life, but it has to be done.

Yesterday, I had my pre-op appointment with my ENT. He informed me that my lymph node biopsy came back benign, which is excellent news! This means that I will not have to go through a lateral neck dissection surgery to remove that lymph node, so the surgery will be a routine total thyroidectomy. I'm a little nervous about the whole thing because I've never gone under general anesthesia before and the only surgery I've ever had was to remove my wisdom teeth when I was in high school. Thankfully, I have my family who will be there and many friends who have offered to come visit or help in any way they can, so I know I have a huge support network cheering me on. Naturally, my blood pressure has been through the roof lately because all of this has been slightly quite stressful. For the most part, I've tried to remain as calm about this as I possibly can. No sense in getting overly and outwardly stressed about it because that doesn't do anyone, especially myself, any good. Some days are harder than others stress wise (mostly days when I'm scheduled to see a doctor), but I've been doing things to keep myself busy like reading all three books in the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children series or going to IKEA, buying, then building a bookshelf so I could organize my son's books that have been strewn all over our bedroom floor for the longest time.

So what's ahead? 

They'll remove my whole thyroid. My surgery date is September 12th. One week after surgery, I will start to eat a low-iodine diet to ensure that my body is starving for iodine. Three weeks after surgery, I'll then have to do radioactive iodine (RAI) treatment where I'll be secluded from literally everyone for a few days. I swallow a pill and then any thyroid cancer cells or any thyroid cells that are left will soak up the iodine and die. After that, I'll have a nuclear body scan done to make sure all the cancer cells are gone and I'll have to do those once a year for 5 yrs to ensure that I remain cancer free. I'll also be put on thyroid meds for my whole life since I will no longer have the ability to produce those hormones naturally. Good thing is that once I have surgery and go through the radioactive iodine treatment, I should be cancer free.  One bummer though is that, ideally, I need to wait 2 yrs after the RAI treatment to even start trying for another baby. That wasn't quite the timeline Hector and I had anticipated, but we will do what needs to be done to ensure a healthy mommy and healthy baby. 

I will be out of commission: no lifting, exercising, or driving for about 2 weeks after surgery. I'll meet with the ENT on the 20th to remove my stitches and Steri-Strips and then later that afternoon, I'll meet with the endocrinologist to ensure that my hormone and calcium levels are moving in the direction they need them to go. 3 weeks after, if my levels look ideal, I'll do the radioactive iodine treatment. I'll have to be about 6ft distance from anyone and I have to follow certain precautions when eating, drinking, showering, etc to contain my body fluids and make sure they don't come in contact with anyone. After those 2-3 days, I'll be able to be around anyone, but can't sleep in the same bed as Hector or HG for 21 days (which will be super hard on HG) and I have to limit my time in close proximity to them since I'll still be slightly radioactive and the doctors don't want me to expose them to too much radiation. I need to make sure to ask if I can lay with him until he falls asleep and then move to the other room. Last thing I want to do is expose him to radiation!

How did I get thyroid cancer?

No one knows exactly. I don't have any family history of any cancer. But what I've read about thyroid cancer is that it is most prevalent in women ages 30-50 and higher incidences are recorded in individuals who have been exposed to excess radiation as young children or young adults. Only thing I can think of is dental x-rays...maybe they didn't cover my thyroid like they should have. Who knows? Oh well...only thing now is to spread the word about thyroid cancer and how it can be prevented. From here on out, I will make sure to demand my son's thyroid be covered at all dental appts where he will need x-rays and tell other mom friends of mine to make sure they themselves and their children to take precaution when having any sort of x-rays taken.