Check-Up

This morning I went back for my second follow-up after my thyroid surgery.

I was trying not to freak out since I thought the doc would take off the plastic-like strips (I think the official name is steri-strips) that cover the actual incision and so thought today I'd be coming face-to-face with my new neck and new scar.

It wasn't exactly an introduction I've been looking forward to.

The doctor did take the strips off and cleaned it up but stuck more of the strips back on for another week. 

The only one that got to see it was my husband so I spent the last hour asking my husband how it looked a thousand different ways to see if I could get some kind of other response other than, "it doesn't look bad."

Me: Does it look bad? Be honest.
Husband: It doesn't look bad.
Me: Be HONEST
Husband: I AM being honest.

Me: Does it look better or worse than what you expected?
Husband: I think it looks the way it's supposed to look.

Me: On a scale of 1 to 10...
Husband: How long is this going to go on?

Me: Am I going to cry when I see it?
Husband: I'll tell you one thing if you do cry you're going to get a one-way ticket to the moon

Sometimes I think God really did find me the perfect partner. Because I do recognize that if he answered me any other way it would only feed my neuroticism. 

The doc finally prescribed me synthroid which is the medicine that replaces the hormones that my thyroid was responsible for. 

This is the tricky part because it can sometimes take a while to get the right dosage that works best for you so it can be a bit of trial and error at first. Which sucks because if it's too much or too little you can suffer from a slew of side effects.

The biggest side effect I've read about is weight gain and feeling tired.  I'm having a hard time dealing with this. I mean what woman wants to hear that she may gain five to ten pounds. Because it's oh sooo easy to lose ten pounds..yea right. It's friggin HARD to lose weight and I have a whole baggage full of weight issues that I've dealt with my whole life but I'll deal. Hopefully in a few weeks I"ll be able to work out again and I'll feel better about myself.

In brighter news, this Saturday I can start DRINKING again!

Not to sound like a lush but this has been a true sacrifice for me. Apparently alcohol is not good and can cause bleeding so you can't drink before or after having surgery. I haven't had a glass of wine OR a margarita OR an apple martini OR a mojito (that's about all I drink) in THREE weeks. Sad but I don't think I've gone that long without drinking since I turned 21...oh who the heck am I kidding...like I didn't discover alcohol until 21!   HA!

Anyway, I figured I'd write about my experience because I know when I was struggling with trying to make a decision about what to do about my thyroid I spent hours and hours reading stuff on-line and it always helped to stumble across a blog and read about real people's experiences.