Back home

Mike and I drove up to Boulder today to help out with Katy's return home.  She was discharged before noon, and home in time for some scrambled eggs and apple strudel.  Katy spent most of the day on the couch watching TV and napping, but she looks really good!  All the doctors were very impressed by how little swelling there is, her Ca++ levels are fine, and her drainage is lightening up.  She's tired and sore, but that's to be expected.  I'm sure she'll update herself in the next couple of days.

All of the supportive and loving messages being sent our way are greatly appreciated!  Thank you all for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers; we're lucky to have such amazing family and friends!

out of surgery!

Hey guys! I'm a bit woozy and doped up so I'll keep this short but wanted to let everyone know I'm doing well! I've been moved to my own room and I've even kept down half a sandwich! I'm surprised by how well I feel actually, I'm tender but not in much pain, my shoulder isn't too stiff and I haven't had any issues with nausea from my meds! I've also had such an amazing support team and such lovely people looking after me which has been a huge help! I had a wonderful dream while I was out that I was running up and down the beach with my two dogs (who were both much younger and healthy) while my late grandfather sat on a park bench eating a slice of cherry pie and watching us.

On a more medical note, although they removed more than the obviously diseased lymph node, the rest appeared pretty normal , but we'll find out more about them when the lab results come in next week. Also, the head of Endocrinology came by and cleared a few more things up for us. She explained that their main concern at the moment is my calcium levels. Last year during my surgery they had to transplant my parathyroids which are what controls calcium, and since then they seem to be working fine but I have been on the edge of low calcium levels. Their concern is that any swelling in my neck could affect these glands and they're ability to function properly. This is why I have to stay in the hospital for at least the night so they can monitor me since sudden calcium deficiency can make me extremely ill and is potentially life threatening. She also mentioned that I will most likely have to have another dose of radioactive iodine, but that wont be any time soon.

Thank you all for all the love and support! It's been really amazing and helped keep me is great spirits! I'm so glad to be moving forward and to have the surgery over with! I'll do a further update tomorrow when I'm hopefully less groggy.

Out of Surgery!

The doctor just came out to talk to us.  Katy is out of surgery, waking up in PACU.  Everything went great, he was smiling tell us how well it went so that's always a good sign!  He said things couldn't have gone better!  All her nerves are fine, so her voice shouldn't be affected.  The lymphoid they were concerned about was very obvious, and they went ahead and removed the surrounding glands as well.  We should hear back from pathology next Thursday, which is also when she'll get the drain out.  Apparently they were all listening to her ipod while prepping for surgery, and they put her headphones on her now that she's waking up so she can listen to her "affirmations" playlist.

In Surgery

As of 10:15 am mountain time, Katy is almost in surgery.  We arrived at the inpatient pavilion at 7 am and were promptly led back to pre-op.  Karen, Bob and I got to stay back there with her while all the different doctors and nurses came by to check her information and get her ready for surgery.  Everyone here is so friendly and wonderful!  Gram and Laurie joined us back there and Gram helped Katy get into a very relaxed state.  After a couple hours, the nurse anesthesiologist came by and gave Katy her first dose of happy drugs, and wheeled her away.  We all feel like Katy is in the best possible hands, and will keep the blog updated as we learn more!

Update: pre op

Hey everyone! As most of you probably know I'm back in Colorado again for more treatment. Thought this was still a great way to keep everyone up to date on everything.

When I was last home in July a check up with the doctors discovered some remaining desease in one of my lymph nodes, and while that sounds nasty it is still pretty straight forward to treat so I am currently back to get it removed. I've got my surgery scheduled for tomorrow at 9am and earlier today I had my pre op and thought it would be good time to update everyone on all the details.

They are planning on removing all of the lymph nodes on the left side of my neck just to be safe. This will include an incision that will probably over lap my last scar as well as go farther along the left side of my neck and possibly up towards my ear in the shape of a "hockey stick." The surgery is about as invasive if not slightly more so than my last surgery and should only last about 3-4 hours. I will probably have to stay the night in the hospital and on the gross side I'll get to have a drain in my neck for a week. The biggest chance of complications are the fact that in order to remove the nodes they have to move some of my neck muscles out of the way and then back again. This will effect my shoulder at least short term and will be a more painful recovery than my last surgery. Another possibility is that I may loose feeling in that part of my neck either short term or permanently. The other more serious side effects are if they hit a nerve as the main nerves in that part of the neck control the vocal folds, the tongue, the shoulder muscles and the diaphragm. However, none of these would be at all life threatening and there is only a %1 chance of this occurring. And with such a skilled surgeon I like to think my odds of any of that happening are even less!

On the bright side I have the most amazing doctors and surgical team and I have no doubt in there abilities. They all seemed extremely prepared and optimistic. The doctors also cleared up some of my confusion and fears about the diseases reoccurrence. I was concerned of it's return as I had understood that the radioactive iodine I took this time last year should have killed all of it. However they reassured me that that should have killed any remaining thyroid tissue as well as having the best chance of killing any cancer cells that may have spread to other parts of my body such as my lungs and bones. So there is very little chance of there being any cancer in other parts of my body which is very good news. However, apparently lymph nodes are much harder to penetrate with radiation, but they are one of the easier locations to remove through surgery so it is nothing to be too concerned about. They also made it clear that I am extremely lucky to be so young and that while it may have slightly raised my chances of it reoccurring again, it has not changed my mortality rate at all. All very good and reassuring things to hear!

I also want to give a huge thank you to everyone who has been so amazing and supportive throughout this whole ordeal. I could not have done it without you and you're love and support! It really means the world to me! I love you all so much and can't wait to put this all behind me and move forward! I also hear 11/11/11 is one of the luckiest and most spiritually connected days of the century so I can only take that as more good luck! All things considered I've had a pretty amazing year and I'm looking forward to continuing that!

I'll probably be pretty out of it, but you can keep an eye on this blog for updates from my family throughout the next few days! :)

results!

Hey everyone! As most of you know, I had a lymph node biopsy last week. I just got off the phone with the doctors and It is positive. But while that sounds bad it's actually in some ways good news. It means that it is operable, they know exactly where it is, and it probably hasn't spread beyond that area so it should be fairly straight forward to deal with. Unfortunately they can't fit me in for surgery until September at the earliest. But the doctor and Surgeon had a consult and decided that it wouldn't be bad if I waited until the end of the semester and came home in November for surgery as an option too since it is slow growing and probably wont spread.

It is all a bit of a blur and is still setting in, a bit frustrating not be able to deal with sooner, but at the moment we are looking at flights back to Australia for me and with any luck I should be back down under and in school by the end of the week! Hard to believe by this time next week I'll be back to my life in Tassie, going to classes and hopeful keeping myself occupied! What a wild ride!

follow up

Hey everyone!
so I know it's been a while since my last post, but I've just had my 6 month follow up and thought this would be a great resource to continue to keep everyone up to date! The past 6 months for me have actually been great! i've been recovering wonderfully and been able to return to pretty much everything I'd been missing out on and my voice is really starting to get back to where it was with my singing!

However, I am back in Boulder for the week to get a follow up and make sure everything is as it should be health wise. After several days of tests and ultrasounds I've just returned from Denver with somewhat frustrating results. the good news is that all of my levels seem pretty good and I only need a slight medication tweak. Bad news is that in the ultrasound, one of my lymph nodes looks suspicious. Also, My thyroglobulin levels also seem to be a bit higher, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it shows that there is probably a small amount of diseased cells still in there as well.

What this means is that the next step is to get a biopsy to confirm anything. If the biopsy is negative I will fly back to Australia for my second semester of classes and return to Denver in 3 or 4 months for a body scan just to double check everything. (unfortunately since it's the 4th of July weekend i wont be able to get my biopsy until next week so I'm already missing my scheduled flight back to Australia, but we've decided to let that go and not worry about the time frame as my health is the number one priority right now)

If the results are positive, I will most likely get another extensive surgery (woohoo more cool scars). This time on the side of my throat instead of the center around where my thyroid was. luckily the wonderful surgeon who did my previous surgery is still the best guy for the job and sounded very willing to work around my schedule to get it done! THey also made it clear that they would be sure to not only remove the lymph node but fully "clean out" that area of my throat to insure nothing would be left behind! They probably wouldn't do more radioactive iodine any time soon as that can linger and I probably still have it in me a bit. And if that last dose didn't kill it they can't garentee more would make a difference at this time, and they dont want to have to expose me to any more of it than they have to!

Luckily both scenerios are still a stage 1 in cancer and have very promising prognosis! so, although it still sucks, things could be a lot worse and there are still plenty of things I can do and the odds are in my favor! And things still look optimistic for me to return to Australia and even take semester two classes (although I may miss the first week or two)

Over all it's been a hard day, but I am so lucky to have so much support! and my horoscope promised a 5 star day! so although I got told the cancer might still be there, a bird pooped on me, I spilled my lunch all over a poor hospital worker, and I found out i'm allergic to hazelnuts (no more nutella :(),I can't imagine what it would have been like if it was only a 3 star day! And at least I get more time in the beautiful Colorado summer with my beautiful friends and family!

I'll be sure to do my best to update this with any news we get and I really appreciate all the love and support!

Katy