My experience getting a Complete Thyroidectomy

Hey everyone! Welcome back to my blog. As many of you may know if you read my blog, I had cancer. 

Every time I would go to the hospital for a check up the doctors would say “you know what your neck doesn’t look normal.” “Your neck looks too big, we should check it out.” So, they finally did. I had a biopsy done on my neck and parts of the neck that I had the biopsy done at came back fine. Except one part. The doctors told me that it came back “sus”. Meaning I had to get a surgery called a “complete thyroidectomy” done so they can send my thyroid for further studies because I had 50/50 percent chance that it could be cancer.

The doctor explained to me that thyroid cancer was nothing like the cancer that I had before. He said that many people can live until old age and not even realize they have thyroid cancer. He said “an old person can have thyroid cancer and die and the thyroid cancer isn’t what kills them, it’s the old age.” Anyways, he went on to explain to me that if when they sent the thyroid to get studied and the results came back saying I had thyroid cancer the surgery was all I was going to need. 

I had the complete thyroid surgery on August 8, 2022. When I had my surgery I remember I woke up from the anesthesia feeling terrible. I wanted to throw up so bad and I felt so dizzy. They have me one of those vomit bags but not to vomit in. They put a peppermint cloth in it so I cold smell it. 

My throat felt so sore, especially with the drain hanging from my neck. The drain was a round clear plastic ball kind of thing that had like a ketchup top thing that I had to open to drain the blood the ball collected. I had to squeeze the ball after so it could continue to drain the blood. This is what the drain looked like. 

I got this picture from Google, but this is exactly what my drain looked like. 

 

This is what the thyroidectomy scar looked like. 

I had to get the drain removed 3 days after my surgery. The process was supposed to be painless, if my doctor didn't drag attending to other patients but hey I'm a trooper and I got it done without any numbing. Ok, so what happened was. I had to go to my surgeons office to get the drain removed. One of his nurses came to numb my throat. He was like the doctor is going to come in a few minutes. By the time the doctor is here your throat is going to be numb and the drain removal is going to not hurt. 10 minutes passed by and nothing. The doctor comes in and was like let's get that drain out. 

He told me if the nurse already numbed me I said yes, but the numbing had already passed but I don't think he heard me because he proceeded to pull out the drain. I could feel the drain coming out my neck with each pull. When I tell you I almost cried on the spot but I held in those tears. 

I was expecting the doctor to like close the drain hole with special glue, but he just put a band aid on it and said the little hole was going to close itself because it was like any other cut. 

Anways, I was told I could eat anything as long as I felt comfortable with it. But I wasn't comfortable eating things like a burger for example so for like a week I would eat warm soup or of course things like ice lollipops & ice cream.

I got my results back rather quick and guess what? I DON'T HAVE THYROID CANCER. But having my thyroid removed really helped my health overall. I don't know if I wrote here once but I was also told at the hospital before that I was tachycardic which means that I have a high heart rate. My normal heart rate would sometimes be 160 and that would be when I was resting. Ever since I got my thyroid removed my heart rate is getting normal. Like I've seen low numbers like 60.

This is how my surgery scar looks like now 2 months after. 

The scar does get itchy, but I just put vaseline on it or lotion that has aloe. 

What I have to do next related to this is that sometime in November I have to go to see my endocrinologist so she can check my blood to see if the thyroid pill dosage she prescribed is doing good. 

Anyways, that's it for today's blog post. I just wanted to share something that has happened in my life. Hopefully this helps someone. 

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