Surgery

I had surgery on Tuesday, September 20, 2011.  My entire thyroid was removed.  No cancer was found in the surrounding lymph nodes during surgery.  I spent the night in the hospital.  Every two hours someone came into my room to give me pain medication (morphine through IV), or to check my vital signs, or to check my respiration, or to take blood (for calcium level test).  I didn't get much sleep!  The doctor came to check on me around 1:00pm.  He was pleased with the amount of fluid that had drained from the surgery and that my calcium levels were pretty stable.  I was discharged shortly thereafter. 

My incision is being held closed with steri-strips.  This photo was taken six days after surgery:

After the steri-strips were taken off to be changed.

Most of my pain has been in swallowing, especially food.  I found that soft foods like jello, yogurt, smoothies, and milkshakes were the easiest things to eat the first two to three days.  I especially like milkshakes because the coldness feels good on my throat.  It has taken several days to get my appetite back to where it should be.  It also took several days to get my appetite back to normal.  I could eat, but just not large amounts of food.

The front of my neck feels heavy.  I have to remind myself to keep my head straight up and not hunch over.  The nurse told me that trying to protect the incision will cause more pain than the surgery itself!

I was able to stop taking the pain pills the fourth day following surgery.