Total thyroidectomy surgery

My total thyroidectomy surgery was June 1 at Kaiser Roseville. I was somewhat nervous, but I didn't go nuts. The big lump on my neck was really bothering me, so I was so anxious to be rid of it. I got to the hospital, put on the gown and went through the whole process. Finally the time came to say goodbye to my mom, dad and my boyfriend. They wheeled me away to the OR. I get in there and it's really cold. I see on the whiteboard "Mary Cullen," and I had to tell the nurse that's not my name. Like really, was that an omen?! I had to tell him that Mary is my middle name, Caitlin is my first name. And then I fell asleep. Finally!

I woke up asking for pain medication. That's what I remember at first; those were my first conscious thoughts. Then I saw my family. That was nice, and such a relief. I had a private room, and later I was told that I was on the oncology ward of the hospital. That was certainly a lot to think about. Like wow, this is real. Fortunately, I was able to get myself to the bathroom quite soon after surgery. That gave me a sense that, "Ok, it's still me. I can walk."

This is me riiiiight after surgery, still in recovery. Its very spooky for me to look at because I only vaguely remember asking my boyfriend to take it. I forgot about it for a while, and then he sent it to me weeks later. That's ice on my neck.


The stay in the hospital went quickly. My head was really affected by the surgery because the incision was sewn up so tight, so my head was tilted forward a bit. It was many weeks before I could hold my head up straight.

We went home the day after surgery. I guess we were at the hospital a total of 36 hours, give or take. My cousin Nichole came to visit the next day. She is 15 years older than me and she is married with three beautiful kiddies, but we have a lot in common and I think we can read each other's minds. We both have two brothers, so we are essentially sister wives. Anyway she came to visit // take care of me and she brought her five year old and 14 month old. I have a pretty small apartment, so it was tight quarters. If I could go back, I would do it all over again, though. It was great to have my tiny little place so full of love and support. After surgery, my mom cleaned my whole place. It wasn't even dirty, but she was on her hands and knee scrubbing my bath tub. That's the kind of mom I have.

I took Norco for the pain, and it did the job perfectly. I had a lot of fear before my surgery about taking pain medication. (Sidebar: I had four wisdom teeth removed in January and all I took was advil!) I was afraid that the medication would make me feel intoxicated and I was afraid I'd say things I didn't mean or behave strangely. Fortunately, none of that happened and I was totally present mentally.

Looking back, I didn't relax and take it easy as much as I could have. I just really wanted to be normal and functioning again! So I went to Trader Joe's in the first week after surgery, and I went shopping at Ross. When my incision opened up and got infected seven days after surgery, I was really kicking myself.

Here I am sometime after surgery. I think right after this, I realized the incision had opened.


Yeah, the wound opened up and the skin glue that was spread over the wound got all in it. I went to my post-op appointment 10 days after surgery and my surgeon was definitely disappointed to see the condition of the incision. He said it had never happened to any of his patients. He wondered if my skin just had a bad reaction to the skin glue. I'm allergic to latex, though the skin glue didn't contain latex. He had to clean the wound out. Let me just say that I've had a belly button piercing and I've gauged my ears to 0g. I have tattoos in two of the most painful places, my ribs and my inner bicep. I know pain! Make no mistake about that. When the surgeon cleaned out my infected wound, I just sat there crying and sweating and it was like getting a tattoo. It was awful.

I had to dress the wound three times a day so the skin could heal and come back together. What I had was a little cavity and I was so afraid for how I would look as a result. I cried myself to sleep two nights in a row after the infection. I'm talking long, full sobs for maybe 10-15 minutes. Which is a long time. And it felt miserable. But I think that was the natural reaction. It just felt like a really dark time.

I dressed that wound three times per day and it hurt so bad, but finally the skin did come back together. The surgical tape I used to dress it gave my chest a gnarly and painful rash. I was so afraid my skin wouldn't recover and I'd have skin discoloration. Luckily it did recover.

This is what the opened incision looked like. See all that redness around the wound? That's from the surgical tape. SO painful!

I would have to soak gauze in sodium chloride and essentially stick it into the cavity.

Then I had to put tape over that. I wasn't happy.

Then the cavity started to shrink.

And look at that! It closed up. It felt like magic.


So now my focus was just to keep my neck covered and enjoy my summer. I returned to work around June 25. Now I just had to wait for a date for the radioactive iodine treatment.