taking it slow

This recovery thing is weird. See, right after surgery, there are a lot of things you don't feel, because nerves have been severed or shocked. But over time, the little nerves come to their senses (haha) or regenerate or whatever, and then you start to feel things more. Incisions, for example. Ouch, but really not any more of an ouch than Tylenol can handle. I'm avoiding the hydrocodone like the plague. Between the Tylenol and the Celebrex, I'm doing pretty well, but I can definitely feel when either med wears off.

Anyway, my head and neck mobility are a lot better, so that helps a lot.

Physical therapy (PT) tomorrow, but the drain stays in until Friday morning. I'd rather have it in for an extra day and have my ENT take it out, than try and find someone else to do it on Thursday.

Today was exhausting even though I didn't do much. I did get a nap for a couple of hours, which is what I should have done yesterday.

I'm waiting on the pathology report and wondering if it will change my prognosis. I can't imagine that it would change much, other than the likelihood of finding more cancer down the line. The surgeon feels he got it all, and I certainly hope he's right. The characteristics of my case are unusual in that my tumor markers were low, and I only had 3 areas of uptake in my neck following my RAI in June, but here October they found all sorts of stuff in my neck and chest. A couple of possibilities are that I have some cancer that's de-differentiated (no longer absorbing iodine) or that it is much more aggressive than papillary thyca is.

Whatever they find, they'll still follow-up with labs and ultrasounds and CT scans, so it's not really going to make that much difference, at least in the short term. I don't really want to think about possible future treatments right now. I need to focus on getting through this one, first.

Tomorrow I'll make up a list of questions for my patient advocate and I'll try and get the ball rolling for getting my records (including labs, operating report, and pathology report) and scheduling my follow-up visit in February. Once that's all set and the drain is out, I can stop thinking about what happened last week and look to the future. For a few months, anyway.