One Month Later
I had originally intended to update my site more often since my last surgery, a little over a month ago. I thought that perhaps my experience through this would someday help someone else with thyroid cancer if they happened to stumble upon it. Obviously, that has not been the case. The last month has been an exceptional challenge, to put it nicely. The first few days after my second surgery were a nightmare. My doctors prepared me for the actual surgery – what to expect during – but no one prepared me for how my body would react without a thyroid. The day after my last post I hit a brick wall. I was exhausted, sleeping 16 hours plus a day, and cold. Bone chilling, excruciating cold – a cold I have never felt before. I was buried in piles of blankets sweating but freezing from within causing painful aches. For the next few days until my medications kicked in I was fully aware that life was going on around me but unable to be a part of it.
Exactly one week after surgery I stopped holding down all foods and liquids. This meant that my thyroid medication was not getting into my system and I started to spiral downward again. And yes, being that ill after just having 2 surgeries on your neck, truly is agonizing. Brian ended up taking me to the emergency room where they hooked me up to IVs to rehydrate me and gave me a cocktail of anti-nausea medications. The problem at that point was finding a good spot to put the IV. After two surgeries and numerous blood draws my hands and arms were completely black and blue. The ER nurse just kept shaking her head and asking what had they done to me during my hospital stays! But eventually I did receive the fluids – even if it meant moving the IV line a couple of times. They also sent me home with anti nausea pills which the usually give patients going through chemo. Believe me those came in handy one week later when my sister and I came down with food poisoning after eating at PF Changs!
So I have had my up days and my down days. It is frustrating to feel so well one day and think that perhaps you are finally coming out of the worst of it, to not being able to get out of bed the next day. I still have not yet come to terms with the fact that I have cancer. It is there, present in everything I do and looking in the mirror is even more of a reminder. But I have not yet fully allowed myself to grasp the full extent of it. It is almost like it is happening to someone else because when I do really try to think of it and digest it all, it just seems surreal still. It is like I am outside looking in on it instead of being in my own body. And yet I feel like there is a ticking time bomb just waiting to burst. As if at any moment it is going to hit me all at once. I know there will come the day when I do break and the weight of what I have been dealing with will come down on me. I am just hoping it comes once I am on the other side of the cancer journey.
The funny thing for me is how many people say what I positive outlook I have. Perhaps I just do not understand, but really what other type of outlook am I supposed to have? I suppose I do have this grand excuse now to curl up in a ball and stay in bed everyday but what would that accomplish? The reality of the situation is that the last month has been dreadful. And there are times I do wish I could have slept through the last month and continue to sleep through this and wake up magically cancer free. But I keep pushing forward because I cannot stop – I am a mom and a wife. My world does not get to stop because I have cancer and I do not want it to. That is when it will have truly gotten the best of me and I resolved from the beginning that is not the way that I want to remember this time in my life.
I want to close the entry with a quote I came across a couple of weeks ago. It has become my mantra of sorts for when I am feeling overwhelmed and unsure of where my path is leading. I hope it speaks to you as much as it has to me.
“I may not be able to change the circumstances, but I can choose
how to have the experience. I choose to be happy.”
- Annette Matten
dear friend may the good lord give you both the strenght love and patience, is going to be a long road but if the two are are toguether you will make it believe me i have been there i’m still there but your children will give you both the push you will need i wish you both all the luck in the world and my friend do not dispair in the time that thing look daker take a deep breath and take time gather strnght. I had cancer in my thyroid gland since 03 i have it remove in 04 i have 3 sergury on my neck and feeling like the world was ending i have benn left with the devastetion of loosimg my period for 3 years my hair fall of all the time my body is in agony i burst into tears for not reason when my cancer was diagnosed i been having problems for 2 year where i been putting weigth on for not aparent reason and i keep telling my doctors that something was really wrong with me but for 2 years they did not listen they always have some coment like maybe you need to loose weigth to make u happy or the favorite was have you seek couseling i mean i hate hopitals and doctor so i keep thinking this is stupid why can’t they listen to me by the time they listen my cancer have spread so i’m still waiting for my remision it been a long road and i have not idea where it will lead me but my light in all the problems is my children when i have treament my baby was 2 years old and for 6 month a could not tuch them or hug them i was in assilation at hospital for six weeks because i have too much radiation in my body my baby thought i didn’t love her any more because couldn’t hug her i know what you mean when you said that the world does not stop because they say you have cancer, the first thing the came to my mind was who is going to look after my babies when i’m gone no way i’m leaving my babies alone and that i think keep us in our toes the pain be dam my kid needs me so get the hell out of my way because i’m coming and no ilness is gona stop me you know that the only person who knew i was ill was my boss because i realise that is not the illness that kill us but the pople around us specially people who keep ringing and asking stupid questions like how are you feeling today i mean how do they think, we are in agony well in my case a was cover in blisters after my radioactive iodine yuck. so when i sew your blog i felt that i was not the only one in the same situation thank you for putting this on line and good luck to you both with lot os love ada
ada moran said this on November 19, 2009 at 4:13 am