thyroids et al.

I didn't expect to be told that I needed a thyroidectemy at 20 years old - when you're that age you feel pretty much invincible. I was really upset, to say the least. I dislike operations - the irony of the thyroidectemy was that the surgeon found out that I needed one when I was on the operating table getting my wisdom teeth out. I woke up from general anaesthetic feeling terrible and was told that the lump on my throat (which I hadn't noticed before) had to be removed too.

I decided to do it in Brussels, not because I have anything against the NHS - I love the NHS, they fixed my wrist without question when I accidentally threw myself down the stairs - but because Brussels does have a pretty good reputation medical-wise.

Anyway, I was booked to stay in for two days and two nights - I swear, longest two days of my life, and I was crashed out for one of them! But contrary to my expectations, the experience was actually more pleasant than the wisdom teeth removal.

Because I obviously looked stressed out, the nurses gave me a 'happy pill' to chill out before the op (they should sell those for everyday use...they're amazing!) and then I waited around on a bed until they wheeled me into the operating theatre. After a 5 second weird experiece of feeling my body close down but my brain still working when they anaesthetised me (not pleasant) I woke up what seemed like no time later - but actually a couple hours - with gloop in my eyes and feeling disorientated and generally shit.

The general anaesthetic made me sleep for most of the first day so I didn't really know what was going on anyway. They also gave me a tube attatched to a pot to drain blood out of the cavity which I had to carry around with me, when I went to the bathroom. I was also attached to a drip. But to be honest, I didn't really feel like doing anything but mong for the first day and night. Sleeping was hard, but only because I had tubes coming out of me. The blood-pot tube fell out of me in the middle of the night but apparently that was fine. When I went to the bathroom I noticed I had red (probably antiseptic) stuff smeared from my chin to my breastbone, and bits of glue where heart monitors had been stuck. I looked like a tribal woman.

Second day was the longest day. Ever. I was still a bit disorientated and jacked up on painkillers, so didn't really feel anything or notice that a piece of me had been taken out of my neck. Got woken up early and played cards and stared into space until Tribal Wives was on BBC2 at 11, then watched that and went to sleep. God it took forever. Got fed different flavours of protein mush - which wasn't too bad (apart from the banana one) and accidentally got fed tuna and peaches (the nurse mixed up my liquid-exclusive diet with someone elses - bad times, but nothing bad actually happened). That was the highlight of my day.

The night took ages, especially because a mosquito found its way into my room on the 7th floor of a hospital in downtown Brussels. It bit me on the hand three times and once on the bum, and I couldn't really swipe at it because I was still attached to a drip. The miraculous thing was that the itchy swollen bites disappeared by the morning, because of the super antihystemine drugs I was on. They should sell drips in the shops to get rid of bites, I swear.

Woke up in the morning and got my bandage on my throat ripped off, and the scar was suprisingly small and inoffensive. I also have a pinprick scar beneath it where they drained the blood (see right, after I got out of the hospital. The scar is going to fade into the neckline, apparently, and the pinprick below looks like a beauty mark anyway, which could be seen as exotic... I'm going abroad in a month or so and just need to cover it with factor 50 suncream to protect it and make the scar less brown. You can also buy a gel to get rid of scars. The scabb appearance is actually only medical glue - didn't even need stitches!). After hanging around for a while the doctor strolled in, said everything was fine, perscribed me paracetemol and ibuprophene and told me that I didn't have a total thyroidectemy, as previously thought and discussed, but rather that he left a bit in. So I'll still have to be on thyroxin replacement pills but less of a dosage. On top of that, I haven't taken any thyroxin for nearly a week and I feel absolutely fine, because I have excess thyroxin in my body.

General consesus, therefore, is that having a partial thyroidectemy is a lot less unpleasant than getting impacted wisdom teeth yanked out. There's literally no pain, the only problems are boredome and inconvenience - boredome in a hospital room, boredome having to eat nutritious mush, and inconvenience of having to walk everywhere with a drip in your arm. If you're going in to get one, bring an easy to read book or a lot of crappy magazines.

And on top of that, I have another crazy scar to add to my collection - check out this one - no, it's not from a crocodile bite or cigarette burns, but from when I fell down a flight of stairs, shattered my wrist and had to get metal pins inserted for months - all a year and a half ago. Delish.

Images: own