After Cancer: My Story...Part 4

The next day, I walked into the hospital where my surgery was to be performed. First I went in to see the surgeon, and immediately after, went in to speak with the endocrinologist, who was to look after my hormone health.

Three weeks later, I walked into the pre-op department of that same hospital to have my pre-op testing done, and three weeks after that, I walked into same area to report for my surgery, which was scheduled for 9 a.m. that day. I was there two hours prior to finish any paper work that needed to be done.

Living in Canada gave me the benefit of not having to worry about paying for my surgery or hospital stay. A great benefit to any patient who has to go through the trauma of a cancer diagnosis, and something that I am extremely grateful for.

I went into surgery with a complete thyroid gland, and was pushed out into the recovery room with one lobe left.

The surgery itself, was supposed to be a day surgery, which means that they cut you up during the day, and let you go home in the evening.

I ended up spending the night at the hospital because my calcium levels dropped quite low due to the close proximaty of the parathyroid glands which control the body´s calcium levels.

After being given many hospital strength calcium tablets, which I may add, where quite yummy, and as many blood tests as calcium tablets, the medical staff felt that I was good to leave the pleasure of their company, and I was sent home the next morning.

One week after my surgery, I received a call from my surgeon´s office, which I found to be strange because I already had an appointment to see him in another week´s time. The woman on the other side of the phone line told me that the surgeon needed to speak with me, and wanted me to come into his office as soon as possible. Ah oh, not again.

When I walked into the surgeon´s office the very next day, I was told that I was one of the unfortunate ten percent of people who needed to have surgery of the thyroid gland twice. During the first surgery, the surgeon sent a sample from the other nodule ( the one which was inconclusive) to have tested, and it also came back positive for the same variant of cancer.

I had my second surgery 6 months later because I wasn´t sure that I wanted to go through another surgery.