Surgery in the a.m.
Hey, gang!
If all goes well, I'll be having my parathyroidectomy tomorrow
morning at 10:15 am.
Doc'll be removing one of my parathyroid glands... the one that is
hyperactive due to an adenoma (tumor). Not worried about maligancy
since these rarely are. He may also remove a nodule off my
thyroid. I've had a needle biopsy on it but since he is in the
neighborhood - he'll give it a visual look-see. He reserved the OR
for 3 hours. Wow!
I've been having problems with post-nasal drip for the past week and
spoke to good doc yesterday. I don't have a fever and feel fine except
that the drainage is irritating my throat. I don't want to
reschedule since I don't feel that I'm really ill. He told me
that if Claritin D or Sudafed did the trick then that's good. And
it does. I think it is this darned crazy weather.
The risks for this surgery are the usual bleeding/infection. Heck
removing a wart could cause those. 
The other thing is that my
voice may be scratchy if the recurrent laryngeal nerve gets upset
during surgery. That is a branch of the vagus nerve and goes to the
vocal chord on that side. If it gets severed, the scratchiness will
be more permanent though there is something an ENT can do to help
that.
Rich of course said he wouldn't mind me having a temporary smokey
sounding voice ala Kathleen Turner. 
I have to stay overnight per doc's orders. Since the one parathyroid is
overactive, the other 3 are dormant. When you remove the one that
works, the others don't immediately wake up. So... they will be
testing my calcium levels in the OR and after surgery. I may end up
with symptoms of hypocalcemia (low calcium) for a while. It doesn't
sound like fun at all but you deal with what you have to. I see my
endocrinologist a week after surgery.
That's my saga and I'm sticking to it.
Kathy
The other thing is that my
voice may be scratchy if the recurrent laryngeal nerve gets upset
during surgery. That is a branch of the vagus nerve and goes to the
vocal chord on that side. If it gets severed, the scratchiness will
be more permanent though there is something an ENT can do to help
that.
Rich of course said he wouldn't mind me having a temporary smokey
sounding voice ala Kathleen Turner.
I have to stay overnight per doc's orders. Since the one parathyroid is
overactive, the other 3 are dormant. When you remove the one that
works, the others don't immediately wake up. So... they will be
testing my calcium levels in the OR and after surgery. I may end up
with symptoms of hypocalcemia (low calcium) for a while. It doesn't
sound like fun at all but you deal with what you have to. I see my
endocrinologist a week after surgery.
That's my saga and I'm sticking to it.
Kathy 
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