Yesterday I finally had my long awaited surgery! It was a bitter sweet day since I have had the large goiter in my neck for 3yrs now and waited 2yrs getting the run around from lovely tricare prime and their system with referrals! I finally had to just stomach it and switch to standard and we are going to have to deal with co pays because it was coming down to the fact that it could be a life or death situation for me as it had taken a huge turn for the worse, I wasn't able to properly care for my children as needed or my family, I couldn't enjoy life or life with them or my last baby for that fact and my husband getting ready to deploy again and needing to be able to do so.
I'm so glad that we did the switch because we had our surgery booked with in a week of doing so and already I feel so much better!
Before it was like an out of body experience. I felt so weird. Floating sensations, dizzy, like I wasn't even inside my own body. My heart racing, skipping beats in which I had to be on heart medication for.
When we first found the goiter there were no symptoms from it. Didn't even know it was there. Then I thought back a few months to an episode I had remembered thinking I felt something pop in my neck and realized it had been there for months and I never really noticed or put the pieces together.
At the time it wasn't an emergency surgery but they wanted my husband to come home from deployment and me to get it out before it became something serious. We did two biopsies and it didn't rule as cancer so we agreed since his unit would not allow him to come home that we would hold off until he got home and do it then.
I did a lot of research and still wasn't so convinced I needed the surgery and wanted a 2nd opinion. It was then when I came back and was off post that all of the problems started. We waited and waited and put in re feral after referral to see a specialist and nothing was happening.
I started having severe complications with my pregnancy and my OB placed me on thyroid meds for the safety of me and my baby. We weren't sure how many of the problems were from thyroid or me being high risk in general. It got so bad we took the baby as soon as I hit term before it got anymore dangerous for the both of us. Things seemed to have improved for about 3 weeks and then took a dramatic turn for the worse. That was when I first started having heart problems. I went to the ER and they blew me off. I went to my OB and he said he couldn't do anything more since he was about to have me released from his clinic. I waited 3 months to get into my new PCM who then blew me off and just gave me yet another referral. Didn't bother checking the meds I was on, my levels, nothing! He mentioned he thought I was at risk for a cardiac arrest yet didn't put me on anything!
I finally got an appointment with the specialist for summertime.
I finally wound up in the hospital one night, taken by an ambulance and sure enough my heart rate was way up there! They did several testing and gave me some things at the ER to help slow down things in the mean time.
I called the specialist and told them what had happened and they were nice enough to push me through and get me in to them asap!
At this point I had all sorts of things going on.. racing heart, blacking out, passing out in public (I couldn't even be alone with the kids because I'd randomly pass out and it was dangerous), problems eating, dizzy, ringing in my ears, tingling feelings in my left arm, chest pains, problems breathing, just all sorts of stuff! He placed me on heart meds and did an ultrasound on my goiter and tested my levels and put in for an emergency surgery.. an emergency surgery that 2 months later still wasn't through the lovely system of tricare prime! All of these problems that I was being told by the Dr's "it's all in your head" till I see the specialist who finally listened!
I never had any problems with my kids or myself before but when it came time for an emergency we get the problems go figure!
I even went home while my husband went to NTC because I was afraid to be alone for the month and was hoping we could speed up the surgery there being at a military facility and the one where it was found at. Instead I was yanked off my heart meds and wound up in the hospital from it and being told basically I was crazy by the Dr and that I needed to see a therapist and go on anxiety meds.
I did a lot of herbal routes and they helped to get me through enough the last few weeks at least.
So I saw the Dr about a week ago and he said the goiter in my neck was about 5cm large and put me in for surgery. He checked my vocal cords by placing this long spaghetti like tube down my nose through my throat which was NOT fun at the least!
So surgery day came and I was anxious.. anxious to finally get it over with. To be back to me. To be the mother and wife I used to be. I laid there hooked up to IVs and watching tv and thinking how much I was going to panic at any moment! I just wanted to run out of there! I didn't think I could do it. But I knew I had to for my kids!
This was another problem resulted from thyroid.. anxiety! Severe anxiety!
They take me back to the room and everyone was really nice and friendly. The staff was just very reassuring and made me calmer with every minute. They put the stuff in the IV to put me to sleep and just like that, I was out and when I woke up it was all over!
My husband said I freaked him out because they wheeled me back before waking up and it was taking awhile for me to wake up and then when I did wake up I kept grabbing my throat and going back to sleep.
When I got up, we sat me up and got me over to the chair to get me more awake. My husband brought in the breast pump so I could start pumping and dump it so that I could continue to breastfeed.
I was relieved to find out that it didn't test as cancer still! We knew there was a slim chance that even though it didn't show on the biopsy that with the size they might get in there and find out it was cancer. No one wants to hear cancer. That would've been devastating for many reasons but one of the biggest for me would be no breastfeeding. Seems so small to worried about but this is our last baby, my last chance, and something so important to me that I didn't want to loose all because I had to wait on a stupid system to get me in for surgery when I could've had it done before the baby was even born!
So I pumped and dumped and we were out of there in no time and headed off to pick up the kids. I have a wonderful wonderful best friend here Kim who watches them a lot for me and watched all 4 yesterday for me. I trust her more then anything but didn't want to leave my baby. I have never left her. I left her for about an hour to do a teeth cleaning after she was born with Kim but she slept the whole time. She said she was a little fussy but did pretty well for the most part but refused to take anything aside from solid food and a teething biscuit. She wouldn't take anything I pumped or the formula in a bottle or a sippy cup! So luckily we didn't have anything happen from the surgery and I was back to her 7 hours after leaving her and able to nurse her again!
I was a little worried how last night would be because I had planned that if I needed to rest that my husband could feed her if needed during the night. But since she wouldn't take anything it was strictly up to me to feed her. She's been pacifying a lot the last few nights and giving me problems but last night she slept till 5:30am so I got a lot of rest that I needed!
I already feel sooooo much better and back to my old self with the exception of a sore neck. It's almost like a huge crick in my neck followed by a sore throat! It hurts really bad to swallow but is getting better.
We lucked out that they didn't damage my voice box because it had grown up behind my voice box and hadn't shown on the scans they had done! We knew there was a small risk with it anyways but even more so with that factor in there!
The cut wound up being double the size they thought it would be since the goiter was larger then estimated but it doesn't look to bad and the most important part is that it's out and it's over with!
I go to follow up with the surgeon on Monday and then in one month to make sure everything is okay and go back to the thyroid specialist in about 3 weeks. I spoke to him today on the phone when I was confused about what they were telling me about the medication.. I was told that if they were able to just take out half the thyroid I wouldn't need the medication but I wasn't sure if I should stop it right away or if I had to wait. The nurse told me on the phone today to continue taking it and I thought that was odd because even if I should then shouldn't it be a different dose?
So I called the specialist who I'd be returning to who would make the final call and he read the notes and said they were confusing and that's why the nurse probably said that but defiantly stay off the meds!
But they were able to leave my entire left side and just remove my entire right side of my thyroid and he said with my age that there should be no problem with the left being enough.
My husband has truly been an absolute blessing the last few days in helping. I was unsure with how things have been the last few weeks but he's really stepped up. I know it's hard for him but he has totally pampered me from flowers to ice cream!
I'm just so glad the hardest part is over!
PS note to self.. don't ever watch greys anatomy again while waiting to go in for surgery.. haha
