Friday Confessional: Surgery

When I started The Mambo Project blog I decided I would speak openly and honestly about weight loss.  Not just weight loss triumphs but my struggles and fears as well.  This week I contemplated a specific recent event and wondered whether or not I should write about it.  I hesitated because it’s quite personal, but Eddy convinced me that I need to include it in my blog because I did promise candidness.  He’s right.  And, furthermore, its inclusion is important because it may be something which affects my weight loss for a time. 

On Monday, November 1st, I had a thyroidectomy, surgery to remove my thyroid, the butterfly shaped gland at the base of the neck.  In spring I was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer.  I know.  Scary word.  But it sounds far scarier than it is.  While there is no “good” cancer, papillary thyroid cancer is one with a very good survival rate.  This type of cancer rarely spreads and with surgery the survival rate is more than 95%. 

A lot of people have asked me how I found out I had thyroid cancer.  About one year ago I felt a lump near the base of my neck on the left side.  I thought it might be swollen lymph nodes and expected to be getting a cold or something.  When after three weeks I was still feeling well but the lump didn’t go away I decided to pop in to see the doctor-on-call at my clinic.  Straight away he said, “That’s your thyroid” and scheduled blood tests and an ultrasound.  The ultrasound showed solid nodules in my left thyroid.   The next steps were an appointment with Dr. A. (my trusted MD), a thyroid uptake scan, a visit with an endocrinologist, more blood work, an ultrasound guided fine needle biopsy, the official diagnosis of papillary thyroid cancer and an appointment with a surgeon. 

My surgeon is the amazing Dr. Kirk, whom, at home, we respectfully and affectionately refer to as Captain Kirk to make the whole idea of surgery slightly less scary for our kidlet Coby.  Cpt. Kirk removed the cancerous half of my thyroid in June then completed the thyroidectomy five days ago.   He said the surgery went very well and now, after a couple of nights in hospital, I’m recovering nicely at home.   

Recovering nicely at home



I feel strange.  Have you ever stayed up all night then tried to function normally the next day?  That’s sort of how I feel.  Dreamlike.  Spacey.  I felt down on Thursday when I changed the dressing myself and got my first glimpse of the incision.  Cpt. Kirk is skilled and I know I’ll heal well, but right now I look quite a bit like Frankenstein with a neat row of staples across the bottom of my neck.  I am not the slightest bit vain so I don’t mind that I’ll have a visible scar.  When I do start to feel sad about it I give myself a reality check:  I’ll take the scar over cancer, thank you very much.

Are you wondering how all this might affect The Mambo Project?  The thyroid produces hormones which regulate the body’s metabolism.  My mind immediately does the math:  no thyroid = no thyroid hormones = no metabolism = no weight loss.  I am oversimplifying, obviously, but weight gain is one of the side effects of a thyroidectomy.  Eventually medication will be prescribed to replicate the thyroid hormones and I fully expect to lose every ounce I may gain, but at this moment I’m frustrated knowing that my scale may move in an unwelcome direction for a couple of weeks.   I am hoping that if I continue to eat properly I won’t see a gain.  The idea of Wednesday Weigh-In was stressing me out like you wouldn’t believe so I decided to not step on my scale this week. 

I need to stop this.  I mean, come on Leigh, give yourself a break.   Step back.  Consider what you went through this week.  Perspective.  A couple of weeks of slight weight gain are not so bad when you consider that it means I am cancer free.