Last night, the edges of the steri-strips began curling up and peeling away from my incision site. It didn’t take much help from me for them to come off entirely, revealing my new surgery scar.
I’m beyond satisfied with the cosmetic look of the scar, even freshly-healed. I even turned on my camera in a Teams meeting this afternoon, sans scarf, and didn’t get even a second glance. Except from N, who told me privately that it didn’t even look like I’d just had surgery.
Like the ubergeek that I am, I studied the surgery notes as soon as they were made available to me online. One thing I noted was that the “incision was made along one of the natural creases in the neck.” Never have I been so pleased to have neck creases! I’ve seen photos and videos of patients with a straight horizontal scar right across the front of the neck, and that’s definitely not ideal. My scar looks like it’s going to be No Big Deal.
One week after surgery, the pathology results came through. As expected, my lobe was NOT cancerous (and neither was the lymph node they also removed). I did a double-take at this gem, though:
For context, that would be a kiwi fruit shoved into the space behind my left collarbone. No wonder I felt so strange.
As for how I’m feeling now… the swelling has gone down considerably. Now there’s just a little spot in the vicinity of my trachea that’s still tender to the touch. My neck seems to have full range of motion side to side, but I can’t tilt my head to look up very far yet. Per the surgery notes, they did have to separate and reflect some muscles to get to the thyroid, so it’s not surprising to me that they’re still healing.
At my initial consultation with the surgeon, he told me that I most likely would not need to take thyroid hormones after my lobectomy. It had honestly never occurred to me to wonder exactly what my thyroid was responsible for and how it did it, beyond knowing that my bloodwork has been coming back in the normal range for the past decade. So, I did a little research, making sure to check the veracity of my sources before putting too much stock in what they had to say.
Since the thyroid plays a major role in regulating body temperature, one way to monitor thyroid health is basal body temperature, My normal body temp has always been about a degree below the typical 98.6F, so I decided to start taking my temperature every morning and logging it when I log my weight. (Again, being an ubergeek, I have an iOS Shortcut on my Apple Watch for entering my data into Apple Health.) Hoping that I don’t see any downward trends in my body temp — although it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I did have to take thyroid hormones.
I meet with my surgeon on Monday for my post-op follow-up. I’m not expecting any new info, although I am hoping for clearance to return to my Krav Maga classes.