I am alive and at home

What an adventure these past couple of days have been. I do not have much strength, so this post will be short and quick. The operation went well, and I handled it nicely. They had to make a longer incision than what they originally expected, and that was because the first thing they saw was a cancerous lymph node right in the front of my neck. The doctor called in a pathologist right then and there to check it and he said it was cancerous and to take it out along with my thyroid and several other lymph nodes. The first question pretty much everyone asked was if I was going to need chemotherapy and the doctor said no, but I will have to take the radioactive iodine. I just don't know when yet. He also said my thyroid was really bad and had been like that for a long time now and it was good they were able to get it out now because if we would have waited much longer I would have had some serious problems. So now I kind of look like a really bad version of Frankenstein's bride complete with scar. Sweet.

They released me from the hospital around 7:30 pm Wednesday night. I was so glad to be home and sleep on my bed with my pillows and my blankets, although you would not believe how freakin' sore my entire body is. I'm only taking two Tylenol as needed so my pain is really low. My neck feels weird though...like it is missing something and it doesn't quite know how to adjust to that. Gina, you'll know what I'm talking about and now I know what you were talking about before as well. :) It's just a very weird feeling. That's about all I can do to explain it right now.

I am slowly recovering. I don't have much intonation or inflection in my voice and that makes me laugh which kind of hurts. Let's see if I can give a better explanation of that. Think back to a time when I was telling you a really funny story, or explaining something with a lot of emotion. Remember all my inflections, emotions, and facial expressions? Well, now think about a monotone robot telling the same exact story. That's me right now. No matter how hard I try I cannot make my voice any different than monotone. :) It really does sound funny to hear me try. All in good time, though. I know it will come back.

I have bruises all over my arms from the IV they tried to get into two different places. One spot barely has a bruise, but another spot looks like someone smashed a dark purple eggplant all over me. I try not to look at it too much, and I will be posting pictures when I have more strength. I have three bruises on my other arm as well and that's from where they had to take my blood to monitor my calcium levels. Ok. that's all the strength I have. Check back soon for updates.