Almost 3 weeks

So 3 weeks after surgery and I’m doing well. Recovering. I still have pain on the side that my thyroid was removed, while swallowing. A deep pain, but I don’t think it’s an unusual result of thyroid surgery. I will talk to my ENT about it when I see him next Monday. Unless it’s gone.

I still have some minor stiffness and my lymph nodes hurt around it. But again, all normal stuff.

The scar is healing really well. And I feel really positive about my follow up appointment. I don’t want to be thy girl saying its not going to be cancer and blindsighted, but I feel a good 80% certain it’s benign. Even 90% some days. I just had a feeling of, we’re good. No big deal. I mean statistics were always on my side anyway. So, I’m going in on Monday with my head held high (ish. As my neck is a bit stiff) and positivity.

Tomorrow, is Halloween. My 5 year old is a witch. He has a lovely dress and hat and my 3 year old is Dracula. She has a dress and wings. I’ve been promised extra hours at work so I’ve been working extra hard. And my son has really got into painting. I painted another rock, getting to get ready for Christmas.

But I’m busy and I like it that way. Although I did enjoy… No not enjoy but maybe appreciate the time spent doing nothing after surgery. I’ve not been truly idle in a long time. I’ve always been the responsible one. Always something that needed doing. For a few days I was able to let go off it all. It was weirdly therapeutic.

The clocks went back and messed up my children’s happy sleeping routine. And now the small one is back to a very grumpy self we haven’t seen in a while. And I’m not pleased. It’s exhausting.

I might try to take them for a walk tomorrow. If I think I’ll manage. The weather can be rough at the moment and I get cold urticaria of the wind chill is awful.

Kids are now sick

I thought I’d got away with it. It’s been almost a week since I started getting ill but no, my 3 year old is now ill too. Which means at least a week, maybe longer, of looking after two ill kids, while still trying to recover from surgery, a nasty virus and now a sinus infection. I cannot catch a break. Before surgery I had two weeks off a big vertigo/tinnitus flare up. So when I say I’m struggling energy wise, I mean it. It’s been weeks. One thing after another. It’s so hard to get back some wellness, when you can’t catch a break from it.

I mean surgery wise, I’m OK. Some neck pain, some stiffness, but recovery is as expected. Even with this virus, my voice has even started to recover a little.

I dream of being really fit and strong. I’m fed up of being ill. I want to run, and cycle and lift again. And I can’t do much at all. Its very frustrating. I wonder sometimes where it all started going downhill. I used to be fit and I used to have a strong body, even with my eating disorders. I feel a bit lost and tired. And sort of afraid. Today, I just felt heavy with a sense of bad things coming. And I figure if I wrote it down I could neutralise it. Nope. No bad things. I deserve happiness and positivity.

Up moments and down moments. They all exist together.

A photo from today near my home. It was an oddly sunny day, with huge waves crashing at the pebbled beach. If you looked out your window, it seemed calm, but it hid a turmoil of unrest.

My Now

This is what is all about. I need to work, but I have a little girl resting on me, she begged me to come and sit and snuggle. So I did. Because its all about this moment. For so long I cried and prayed for children, years of infertility and loss. And I wished to be here so much.

Yes, I’m ill. I made myself go out with the kids, we went to a garden centre for sorbet and a wander round the early Christmas decorations.

The latter wasn’t planned, it’s a little early for Christmas. It’s weird I keep dreaming that we suddenly realise it’s almost Christmas and we don’t have a tree. We panic trying to get one but never get there. Odd recurrent dream.

I bought a little box to send to my sponsored grieving family at post pals. And a couple of little things to go inside, so far. My 5 year old added a packet of sugar. I probably won’t be sending that, I just didn’t have the heart to refuse.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in life and forget to breathe the now. We are not promised the future, whatever it brings.

Ugh

This virus is kicking my ass. I am wheezing and coughing and absolutely determined to avoid antibiotics. Not that I’m against them, but they start a cycle of illness for me, causing major stomach upsets, imbalances and then more meds and reduced ability to fight off infections o more antibiotics. So I’m hoping to avoid them. But not sure how that’s going to work.

Obviously, the surgery has set my immune system off, this virus is just yuck. It started with some aching, then a sore throat, then coughing, then stuffy nose. And I almost certainly got it from the hospital.

So this week has been HARD. I mean it was going to be hard anyway as I was still recovering, but adding illness has made it so much harder. Luckily my husband is off tomorrow and the weekend. Then working Mon to Friday and then off Monday for my results.

Today, I’m having an “it’s not cancer” day. There you go. I am finding it fun to just not think about it.

Incision is looking really good. Feels tight but that’s probably because I’m hacking up a lung. It can’t be doing the internal healing much good. But can’t really be helped.

On Connection

Being ill, and recovering from surgery I’ve not been up to the 100% super home educating mummy standard (insert laughter here) and obviously my children have noticed. But they have adapted well. In the weeks leading up to surgery, my health was suffering, and that meant less trips out, less home education groups, less walks to the beach. With daddy in charge it meant a lot of screen time, which is barely a part of our day normally. But it’s worked. And I reassure myself that it’s temporary.

In the evenings, when I want to just have a lie down, my 5 year old has been asking to do hama beads with me.

Of course he can do them alone, but he was watching me ildly doing them, and asked why I was searching for colours rather than adding random ones, like children do, and I said I like to make a pattern. So he asked if we could do hama beads together. In a pattern, while daddy baths the youngest.

I recognised immediately it was not about the beads but a bid for connection, as described by the gottman institute. So that’s what we do. Most evenings, for 20 minutes or so, we do hama beads. Together, we plan a pattern and work on it over a couple of days. So, maybe I can’t be the full energetic mother I want to be right now, but we can still connect. Those bids for connection happen in all relationships. And once I’ve become more aware of them, with my husband, with my children, with my family, I see them and recognise them and respond to them.

I was worried the connection to my children would suffer with me not being around as much. To me, connection is so important. We don’t punish in our house, we don’t have rewards and sticker charts, we rely on connection. Why do you do something for your partner, or friend, not family? Because you want to. You want to make them happy because you love them. It’s the same for children, they want to listen and do as you ask, if they feel loved and connected to you, and this means relying on a strong connection, built on trust.

Remembering to respond when they seek that connection can make all the difference to a child, even if bed is beckoning. Of course learning to explain that you’re tired and need to rest now, is also important. It’s a balancing act of connection and self care.

Below, from bids for connection

I’m sick now

I think I picked something up at the hospital when I visited for stitch removal. Now I’m ill. Very sore throat, croaky voice and coughing.. Which is what everyone needs after neck surgery. It’s just crappy.

My husband is back at work. And it’s all up to me. And I’m tired and ill, and still recovering. But somehow we are coping and getting by. Oh and they’ve cut my hours until next month for my online work, my before Christmas pay, and I’m still gaining weight. Now I’ve got out all the negativity…

The lack of work will give me time to work on my writing and painted rocks. Someone wants to sell my rocks in an art gallery shop. But I haven’t taken any yet. So there. Positivity. And being ill? No I can’t spruce that up, but I haven’t got a fever so… Yay.

Incision looks amazing. How can they slice my neck open, remove a giant nodule, and it look so good less than 2 weeks later? I don’t get it. But if they need to go back and finish the job, I’m asking for the same surgeon.

Looking good

I’m amazed how good my incision looks. And I’ll bloody cry if they have to cut it open again. It’s so much more comfortable after the stitches have been removed. I slept much better. And I went out today with my family, we went to the shopping centre. I did well, pain hit me suddenly like a ton of bricks but still, a good trip out. And just over two weeks to get my results. I got a letter from the hospital today and panicked a bit, but it was just a follow up appointment with my endocrinologist for December. Which is good they are monitoring me.

Turns out my husband used all of his holiday pay for these 10 days. He doesn’t have any more left until April next year, so if its cancer, we are truly screwed. I’d need time for another surgery and radioactive iodine. I swing between believing of course it’s benign, to did you are the size of that mofo? No way it’s benign. Who you kidding girl? And then back to, pish, it’s benign. B9. B9? More like it be 9cm. Look how much it grew. Shhhh brain.

I’ll phone my endo nurse next week and see if she can access my blood results for me. See what old righty is up to. Is she managing well on her own? Keeping me euthyroid? 🤷

Stitches are out

Yay. No more stitches. It was kind of painful. It was tug, pop, tug, pop. Ouch. But I persuaded the lovely young doctor to take my bloods too, and he did. I even persuaded him to do my t3, and calcium. He was a very helpful doctor.

This is my before picture. I’m calm. I used mindfulness techniques to stay calm as I waited quite a while.

But finally stitches are out. And I can have a proper shower and wash my hair. It’s so exciting.

I’m having issues with swallowing right now, I think it’s proximal reflux, caused by the surgery. It is making things difficult. But hopefully it will pass. I had swallowing issues prior to surgery, I even choked at one point, eating pork crackling. So I’m hoping for a swifitish resolution to this. Apparently it can be caused by damage to the laragyneal nerve. Or any number of other issues.

Onwards to my histology result in two weeks. And then the rest of my half thyroid life.

Oh there was a chip oh the floor of the treatment room… It was 10Am and no one has chips for breakfast. So that was there at least since dinner time yesterday. Yuck. What a thought!

Tomorrow snip snip

Tomorrow, the stitches are removed. At last. Not sure how that’s going to work. I know it’s supposed to come out in one, but they look pretty embedded in there. I’m fairly concerned that it’s going to be pretty painful. There is some inflamed areas around the ends of the stitches. Plus my chest and throat keeps burning when I breathe. I’m sure it’s nothing, but I don’t feel brilliant.

But I think getting the stitches out will be beneficial. The start of the rest of the healing. I feel pretty tired but spent most of the day downstairs and a good chunk looking after the kids alone. Building up for Monday.

Fingers crossed the stitches come out easily. I put a plaster over the one end that keeps catching.

See how much slimmer my neck is? Amazing stuff

And rest

Lots of rest. I feel a bit better than yesterday. If I overdo, I know about it. My left ear starts burning, my chest starts hurting, my incision starts hurting. All in all though, I’m making progress. And I got my follow up appointment which is on the 5th November. So I can’t help thinking that is great news, I mean, if it was cancer they wouldn’t be making me an appointment for almost 3 weeks time, it would be next week or something. Obviously with the NHS you can never be sure, but I’m pretty confident that the appointment wouldn’t take that long if they knew it was cancer. And it’s been a week, so they should know.

And now I’ve just looked at the letter and it’s dated 12th of October. So maybe they didn’t know. Damn it. Ha, I was really focusing on that one.

Ah well. Life stressors are creeping into my life and making me stress more. Finances, leaving my husband in charge was always going to be dodgy, and it has been. Need to get back to working, I work from home 4 hours a day, but it’s hard when you’re so tired. He’s going back next Monday, so I guess I’d better figure out this recuperation.

I’ve got my littles downstairs making a card for a terminally ill child over at Postpals. I signed up to send a Christmas package to a child and a care package to grieving parents over Christmas. But even a card or letter to a child can bring a smile to their day.

I want to focus on the positives in my life, even when health is not one of them. I need to actively spend time being mindful of this moment. And not what other moments might or might not bring.