Thyroid surgery

Last Tuesday, I fell among cutthroats!  I had the left half of my thyroid removed.  Wahooo!!!  It's all gone!  No more thyroid surgery for me.  It has been hanging over my head for 6 years, since I had the right half of my thyroid removed.  I almost died with post operative complications, so I approached this surgery with a little trepidation.  But I had a wonderful surgeon and he has been so careful with me, based on the complications from last time.  It went as smooth as possible and I didn't even lose my voice, not even for a day!  Again, there was a tiny bit of cancer in the thyroid and we need to decide what to do about that, but no rush.  I am bruised and swollen, but I feel pretty good and have had remarkably little pain.  I just took some photos of myself, so that the bruising is documented.  I usually look pretty good in pictures, but I don't look good in these.  So, I am only posting one of them.  Ignore the wrinkles and bags under my eyes.  But you can see the bruising and the incision.  Dr. Davis removed the old scar, so that I will just have one long one and I hope it is thin.

This year, I planned on having some veins in my legs fixed.  I ended up having knee arthroscopy and thyroid surgery.  I still need the vein work done, but that is scheduled for next January.  I am really ready to have a few years of being really healthy and normal again.  I still have issues with my left hip, but I am so tired of it that I think I will just "will" it away.  Can you do that?  Call it the power of positive thinking or whatever, but I am just not going to let it slow me down anymore.  

I think that I didn't get called for "Madame Butterfly" opera for a reason.  If I had been involved with that opera, I wouldn't have had the thyroid surgery until after the first of the year or maybe not until February.  Because I didn't get called for "Butterfly", I decided to go ahead and have the surgery, in case I lost my voice for awhile.  Opening night is this Saturday and they start rehearsing for the next opera in November.  I hope I get called for that one, because I will be ready to go.  I would have loved to be in another Puccini opera, but it was important to get the thyroid thing done.  I sure hope Susanne will call me.  She is the chorus mistress and the Queen of my opera world. 

Okay, now I am starting to whine.  Enough of that.  Tori had a high school symphony performance tonight and she had a solo.  She sounded so perfect and is really proud of her performance, as she should be.  It was beautiful.  TTFN