Healing

Its been about a month since my surgery and so far, so good.  I'm still tried a lot and my voice gets strained easily, but it gets a little better every day.  I've been really lucky that my school was so understanding and compassionate and was able to arrange for me to have so much time to rest and recuperate.  I know it wasn't a "major" surgery, but having the time and ability to let my body recover at its own pace has been a fabulous luxury.  Sure, it's no vacation on a tropical island...but I'll take it.


On my 3rd day out of the hospital I was able to take off the outer bandage.  There was originally a little red from the glue on the bandage, but I'm not much of a bruiser or bleeder, so it didn't look too bad.  The red faded after a couple of hours and now, I'm basically just glued back together. The doctor said the glue would dissolve on its own.  But I feel tons better being able to move my head pseudo-normally.  There's still a lot of whiplash feeling...and my throat feels a little hollow now that the tumor is gone, but otherwise, its normal feeling.

Bandage off...about a week post-surgery.  The purple is where they drew on me.

The next week, about 2 weeks post-surgery I go back for my follow-up and the get the results from the full pathology.  It was papillary thyroid cancer, which is apparently the slowest growing and most common type of thyroid cancer.  My particular tumor was about 3cm...which is about the size of a JFK half-dollar coin (for all you Americans who don't know metric).  That's actually quite big, so it was good I could have it out so quickly.

Yes, they are measured in millimeters, but use simple math, folks, please.

The doctor thinks the incision is healing well, and actually didn't have any more specific instructions for healing.  Iw as offered a scar reducing treatment, but for an extra $100, they could keep it.  A younger, or more vain girl would have taken it, but since my face is not my fortune, I seriously doubt my neck improves or damages the situation.  Plus, as it is, it's not terribly noticeable.  What does bother me, is that my scar is not symmetrical...it runs slightly to the right, but then again, that makes sense since it was the right side with the cancer.

Two weeks out of surgery.