Slowly Re-Entering The Land Of The Living...

After sleeping for pretty much three whole days I'm starting to come around, at least in short spurts. Before I go any further I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who prayed for me, it definitely helped!

So what was it like?? Well, I don't remember a whole lot thanks to copious amounts of morphine! Actually, my memories from the first day in the hospital are basically sleeping, trying to watch "Lost" completely unsuccessfully, headaches from the morphine (what's up with that, a painkiller that gives you wicked headaches?? seriously??), being told multiple times what went down in surgery and completely forgetting all of it, and throwing up every time I tried to stand up. All in all, a pretty normal post-operative experience from what I understand.

As for my surgery, it was deemed a success. It went a little longer than originally expected because the tumor had calcified or something and made it really hard to get out and they had to take out a little more of the surrounding tissue than initially thought, but all in all, it went well and I'm recovering much better than they had expected. It was initially thought that I might have to be on calcium pills, possibly for the long term, but at least the next three months or so, but today at my follow-up appointment it was found that my calcium is doing WAY better than expected and I should probably be able to be completely done with them by next week. It's totally a God thing because the amount of work that was done to some of the glands that produce calcium should have caused at least short term damage but so far there has been none. My surgeon was pretty shocked that I was doing so well, so that's a great thing that we're praising God for. I definitely wasn't looking forward to having to take 9 calcium pills even for a few months, so this is great news. I also had my drain removed today and that all is looking great and after a scope (ya, had to have another one, but it was a lot easier this time after all that's happened) the surgeon confirmed that my vocal cords are working perfectly but are pretty bruised up so my voice should return to normal (I'm still pretty hoarse and have a hard time talking too load) soon.

I was also excited to find out that my surgeon and endo doctor guy talked and decided to put me on hormone replacement for a while before my surgery. I'm so thankful for that because I really wasn't looking forward to being low on Thyroid Hormone for a month before I have my radiation and now I don't have to worry about that. I'll still have a short time before the radiation that I can't have any replacement hormones, but it will only be for a week or so instead of the whole month.

So right now, I just continue to wait and heal. I'll be meeting with my endo doctor in a couple of weeks and once I meet with him I'll know more about the radiation and when that will be going down. So for now, just trying to get used to not being able to do anything for myself. It's been pretty humbling for me, learning how to ask for help and feeling completely helpless while the kids cry and I can't pick them up or anything. At least today I've been able to "hold" Caleb with the bobby pillow and feed him a bottle. I still don't have a ton of energy and after being up for an hour or so I start to fade quickly and need to lay down and sleep again for a couple of hours, which is where I'm getting to right now, my body is starting to shut down, so this will be the end.

Thanks again for all your prayers, they're really helping!