Recovery

First full day back home. I took a nap this morning from 10:00-10:30 but was otherwise pretty normal, energy-wise.

James filled you in pretty much... he just left out that I had a parathyroid gland removed, also. The surgeon said that when they took the left anterior parathyroid out, that my parathyroid hormone level dropped into the normal range, and my calcium dropped to below range but not zero. This means that my 3 remaining parathyroid glands appear to be functioning properly, even though they were dislocated from their former home (my thyroid, which James already told you I had removed).

I'm waiting to hit the Day Three wall (I've heard days 3-5/6 are the hardest in terms of recovery) but so far am feeling mostly normal, minimal pain in terms of having a sore throat, and though I walked much more slowly this morning that is typical, I did manage to make it 2.5 miles.

My follow-up with the endocrinology surgeon is a week from tomorrow, when I'll get my Steri-Strips removed. Until then, I'm camouflaging my neck because there's some blood and nobody wants to see that. But I can tell under the strips that the cut is tidy and should heal to almost invisible. Apparently, I have a "nice neck crease" where the incision will hide (read: wrinkles and fat). 

Probably my biggest struggle is going to be not to get into my head about the fact that I now require synthetic thyroid hormone to live. If we have some big societal breakdown or something that prevents the production and movement of medication, I'll literally shrivel up and die. So wish me luck, losers!

Super grateful for all of the help we had to make this week go more smoothly: 1) Thanks to Indeed for laying James off so he didn't have to rush back to work but was able to be a lot more involved in the minutiae of taking care of the house and taking care of me. 2) Gracias to my parents who took us out for dinner the night before my surgery, and then spent the night in a nearby hotel so they could be here at 6:45 AM to hang out with Mal while we went to the hospital. 3) Sincerest appreciation to Kristen, Mal's friend Kona's mom, who let Mal go home for a sleepover after Tuesday group. 4) And also danke to my sister for showing up the day after surgery to bring me back home, and for hanging out and visiting. (She ended up having a surprisingly full day when, after she finally returned home, there was a tornado in Temple and she and Ken and the boys went up to help Hannah and Aaron secure their apartment and start to clean up a bit. Everyone's safe, which is the important thing.)