Pathology report

This just in - both masses were cancerous, as I'd expected.  It's "papillary carcinoma, infiltrative follicular subtype".  The tracheal scrapings and lymph nodes removed were not affected - yay - but unfortunately, the surgeon was unable to get clean margins.  As a result, I'll be radioactive for a bit in a coupla months.  My endocrinologist will be the one who schedules that for me.

 

Back to Kaiser for a 3rd visit :(

 Started the new meds and cream last night.  Woke up this morning to find the rash was continuing to spread and had expanded onto my chin - oh just ducky. 😒  I got a video visit, but the doc told me he couldn't properly evaluate me that way; I'd need to be seen in person.  He also warned me that, depending on what they saw, they might need to send me to the hospital.  Bleah!

So I packed a bag, just in case, and the Chief drove me back to Kaiser urgent care.  Fortunately, at 3pm the ENT docs were still there.   The UC folks sent me up there to get my throat scoped; uncomfortable process, but learned that my L vocal fold isn't really working.  Not terribly surprising, given all the digging and scraping my surgeon had to do, but weird to see one vocal fold doing its fluttery thing while the other just sits there.  The ENT said that could take 2+ months to recover, which kinda lines up with what I found online.  That explains why my voice cuts in and out and tires so easily, and why a nebulizer treatment isn't as effective as usual - my lungs aren't the problem.  The UC doc (or was it the ENT?) did say a saline rinse could help.  I'll have to update the family SLP with this info once I get the pathology report back.

UC gave me a nebulizer treatment and a dose of steroids, which helped the rash eventually.  The itch is now down to maybe a 3 from a 7; I might actually get a good night's sleep tonight!  It no longer looks such an angry red, either, even if it has spread.  The bad news, though, is that the UC doc told me contact dermatitis rashed typically need 10-14 days to run their course!  The good news is that they sent me home instead of to the hospital.

I was amused when the UC doc popped in with the doc I'd seen at Sunday's visit - I guess that's what happens when you're a regular!  They compared notes on the state of my rash - had spread a good bit since Dr. 1 saw me on Sunday, but didn't look as red and inflamed. 

If you see me in the next week or so, the rash may still look pretty bad but rest assured it's not contagious. I may not be very talkative given that I'm working on only one vocal fold, so you won't have to worry that I'll regale you with my tales of woe. 😊

Making progress, and another Kaiser visit

Back to Urgent Care this afternoon but I was able to drive myself - no lightheadedness at all today.

The rash continues to spread, slowly but surely.  It looks angrier tonight than it did when I took these photos this morning.  I look forward to the day I don't have anything to log here.  When the triage nurse asked me.to rate my pain, I told her I don't have any, but the itching? That's easily a 7!

As luck would have it, my surgeon called while I was with the on-call doc.  They agreed this is an allergic reaction, and we're stepping up the meds - prednisone and a prescription antihistamine.  I also seem to have collected a case of impetigo, so I've got an antibiotic cream in reserve in case the other meds don't get rid of it. I sure hope all this works - it's gotten so bad that it hurt this morning when the shower water hit the rash. 😩

designing Blithe Spirit

 Most of the hairpieces I ordered for Blithe Spirit arrived today.  Once I have the last one, I’ll head to the theater and start styling the wigs.  The two for Ruth should be easy enough - slick them back into a bun and add the headband with a matching braid on it, to get something like this.  (Ruth gets 2 wigs; twin  styles but one is ghost-gray.) The Elvira wig shouldn’t need much - probably just a trim to make it more of a Louise Brooks style.  

The wig for Mrs. Bradman will take a bit more work.  I found one in the company’s stock that will suit; I just need to have at it with water, styling gel, and assorted styling implements to convey a sense of trying but not quite able to pull off something like this.

 I’m still deciding what to do for Edith, and I need to have a discussion with the director, costumers and actor about Madam Arcati’s hairstyle.  She’s an eccentric, which gives us a lot more leeway.

I need to get in the habit of taking photos of the wigs as I finish them, if only so I’ll have them for a portfolio.  I also should make myself take notes on what worked and what didn’t to achieve a particular result.

The makeup will be pretty straightforward.  I’ve already established that the special ghost makeup the director wants to use won’t trigger any allergic reactions.  Now we just have to see how it works under the special when the lighting designers get all their instruments hung in the theater.

If Kaiser had a loyalty program…

 … I’d be in the top tier!  I’ve been calling their advice line pretty much daily since my surgery, and this morning the Chief took me to Urgent Care to figure out what combination of ointments to apply.  The verdict:  Aquaphor 3x/day on the incision itself, kenalog twice a day on the itchy area around the incision, and if I need the Benadryl cream, apply it at least an hour after the kenalog.  I can also take oral Benadryl as needed, although this morning’s dose really made me light-headed.

I just realized that I’ve probably been messing up my synthroid because I haven’t been waiting at least 4 hours to take my calcium gummies.  This is taking me back to last year, when the Chief and I both had surgery in the same week.  We were on different meds and our respective meds were on different schedules - what a complicated mess!  It took a friend close to an hour to figure out the Chief’s schedule.  This isn’t quite that complicated, but I can see I’m going to need to set reminders on my phone, at least until I get the hang of this new regimen.

One small (or not so small) mercy - I haven’t been having much pain at all.  The itching is so bad it almost hurts, but no actual pain since my first day home.

4 days post-op and a complication

 

Looks like another mouth, that took a pretty solid direct hit!  Little wonder the itching woke me up in the wee hours.  Turns out I'm allergic to the skin glue. The on-call doc recommended benadryl, both cream and pill, which I administered as soon as the Chief got home with them.  It's helping, though I don't plan to skip any doses today or tomorrow.

Three days post-op

Things have gotten quite itchy around that slash.  I ended up getting a Rx for an ointment to apply around but not on the area.  It even woke me up at 4:30 this morning, itching so much it almost hurt.  Between that and the congested, wheezy inhale, I wondered if I'd have to make the Chief take me to urgent care.

It didn't come to that but I may yet call the advice nurse, again, to see if I should be worried or just need to be patient. 

The itch goes all the way up to my jawline and down past my collarbone and out toward my shoulders.  That's a lot of area to slime with this ointment.  I may end up with grease stains on the V-neck shirts I bought for my recovery,  but oh well.

 

I need to remember to cut myself some slack.

 When I'm just sitting around doing nothing, I don't feel bad.  When I stand up, though, I sometimes feel just a touch light-headed or get a slightly unsettled stomach.  Ginger takes care of the stomach just fine.  As for the other, I need to look at that slash across my throat to remind myself that I just had major surgery. 😄

 Oh, and in that vein, I've decided not to take any classes this semester after all.  I was looking forward to getting back into a classroom but I think that wouldn't be a great idea right now.  I will still tutor in the Writing Center, though of course I'll have to take a break while I'm "radioactive". 

It was sort of a relief.

 The Chief and I have known SO many family, friends, and acquaintances who've gotten cancer, many of whom died from it.  Some of them (I'm look at you, Mom) have even had more than one kind.  The Chief's had cancer, too, so I was kinda wondering when it would hit me.  When the biopsy results came back, it was almost a relief; there's my cancer diagnosis - box, checked - and it isn't breast cancer.  I'm not feeling too great about it right now, of course, given what the surgeon found, but the prognosis for this kind of cancer is about as good as you could wish.

Post-op throat

 I had expected my throat to feel kinda raw and abraded because they would have to intubate me.  As it happens, because they both lubricate the tube and administer a local anesthetic, that hasn't been a problem.  Instead, it's been all the muscles in the neighborhood that are aching.  I saw a speech therapist last week who warned me that "swallowing will be weird" - she wasn't kidding!  Yawning is a bit of a challenge, too - my throat doesn't want to stretch for a proper yawn, at least not yet.

Things have been shoved around, pushed, pulled, rearranged (because of course there's no more thyroid taking up space), poked, prodded, and scraped.  My stomach is mostly settling down and I no longer have a headache (hangover?) in the wake of the chemical cocktail they pumped into me in the OR.  I also slept better last night - not as uncomfortable, less coughing, but still had some very weird dreams.

I find that I don't want to turn my head independent of my torso yet, or at least not very much, and my lungs definitely need their PT.  When I inhale through my mouth, e.g., prepping to cough, I wheeze in a way that the Chief admits he finds a bit scary. 

The incision is wider than I thought it would be, maybe because of all the extra cancer the surgeon found?  It's almost 4" wide, and purple, where the surgeon used a purple marker to indicate where he planned to make the initial incision.  Imagine if he'd used a red marker! 😄 

 Oh, it's starting to itch!  Unfortunately, I can't put anything on it to ease the itch until Sunday; for now, I just scratch around it and try to be content with that.

Getting my throat cut (aka thyroidectomy) and words you don't want to hear from your surgeon

 Mom used to joke, when she was particularly hungry, that "My stomach thinks my throat's been slit."  That cracked up my pre-op nurses when I told them I was getting hungry. 

 I think I scored points with my anesthesiologist when I guessed, correctly, that her name was Lebanese:  Arabic-sounding but with a French spelling.  In fact, my care team was a regular mini-UN: countries represented included Ethiopia, Lebanon, Korea, Phillipines, Nepal, and Cameroon!  Pretty cool! 

The OR was kinda fancy - narrow operating table, but it felt like it had lots of places where they could attach wedges or something to make sure I didn't move while the surgeon was digging around in my throat.  It also had 2 great big lights overhead - think an overgrown Ring light - that seemed to have a series of LEDs in them and were on moveable arms.  The anesthesia kicked in almost immediately so I don't remember a thing until I woke up in Recovery.

Except they call it the PACU - Post-Anesthesia Care Unit - which doesn't begin to convey what you go through.  Not just trying to come out of anesthesia, but dealing with the way my throat muscles feel after all the pushing, pulling and carving they were subjected to.  I got a rather lame dinner - meat loaf with gravy (which I didn't touch), some sad mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, diced pears (the only thing I finished), and a tiny container of ice cream so bad I didn't bother after the first coupla bites.  The Chief fed me some chocolate pudding once we got home, just to get some calories in me.

Practically the first thing the surgeon said when he came back to check on me was, "Your surgery was (tiny pause) challenging."  As expected, the surgeon found cancer in the R lobe, where we thought the only cancerous nodule was. It was “tightly adherent to the trachea and I had to shave a little bit of the trachea to get it out.”  Unfortunately, there was also a surprise in the L lobe:  “a similar-appearing mass that had grown through the thyroid gland and was tightly adherent to the nerve to your voice box and also was trying to extend into your voice box.”  No wonder my throat muscles are so sore!

 

That first night was rough - my face and fingers started feeling tingly, so I took some calcium, then got so nauseated that the Chief had to go out to get a Zofran Rx for me.  (Throwing up didn't feel as bad as I feared, but not what you want to be doing immediately post-op.)  Turned out, the pharmacy gave him my calcitriol Rx, not the Zofran, so he had to go back for it yesterday morning. 

Now we wait for the pathology report to come back.  Not good when the mass has grown through the original organ, but it doesn't sound like they had to take any lymph nodes, which I hope is a good sign.

They have to wait at least 6 weeks for things to heal up before the radioactive iodine, which my endocrinologist will set up.  I have a phone appointment with her on Sept. 9.

 

The medical adventures continue; cancer

 Two years ago I tore a meniscus (that HURT!!!) and started months of PT.  Whether because of the PT or the way my gait changed, the arthritis in my R hip got so bad that last year I ended up getting a new R hip, just 3 days after the Chief had surgery to remedy crippling sciatica.

In November I had an MRI of my arthritic neck.  It found a daisy chain of bone spurs, and oh by the way, you've got some thyroid nodules.  I had to have them biopsied (not fun!), twice. 

The 2nd biopsy was in January.  For some reason, the sample didn't get sent for genetic testing, as it should have been, until my endocrinologist followed up in May.  Came back as papillary thyroid cancer.  Met with the surgeon, whose colleagues think very highly of him, in early June.  Finally had my thyroidectomy the other day; that gets its own post.

So far in my theater year...

 1. I learned I'd won an award for the makeup I designed for a production of Blithe Spirit last fall.  

 2. I was in the ensemble of a production of Elixir of Love.  As the housekeeper, my costume was all black, which made me just about invisible backstage. I joked that I was a walking curtain leg!  I also bought myself a fancy chatelaine & a few accessories from Etsy, just because. And yes, I designed the hair and makeup, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.  I designed and was in the ensemble of a production of Patience, set in a 1950s coffee shop.  That meant 50s hair for the ladies.  I let mine grow out a little so I could approximate a period wave.  Unfortunately, I had to sit out the 2nd weekend for a weird reason.  I'd been battling recurring sinus infections since Elixir closed, so they had me on Bactrim, which elevated my temperature.  Weird!  I was able to come back for the final performance, but didn't have the energy to "suit up" and go onstage.  However, at the MD's request, I did sing from the wings.

4. After I'd committed to Patience, I was asked to design Drowsy Chaperone.  1920s - fun period!  However, their dates overlapped, and of course I had rehearsals and such for Patience.  I told them that I'd love to design the show but had a prior commitment and gave them my lengthy list of conflicts.  They still wanted me, and found someone to help.  That worked out beautifully!  Diana & I worked well together, we got to work on a fun show that looked great, and I was still able to meet my commitments to Patience.  I wouldn't do overlapping shows again (I was home maybe 3 nights the entire month of May), but I'm glad I got the chance to do Chaperone.

5. I had so much fun with Blithe Spirit last year that when I found out that the Chaperone company was doing Blithe Spirit, I offered to design it. This time I get to put blacklight makeup on the ghosts, and do slightly different hairstyles; closer to mid-1930s than 1940.  (Another fun period to design.)

6. October will bring Caroline, or Change.  To my surprise & relief, the director has 2 of us doing hair & makeup: I'm doing the white folks and she's doing the Black folks. I'm looking forward to looking how to care for and style Black hair; there's always more to learn!  Not to mention this will be my first show set in the 1960s; guess I'll be "forced" to research styles for a period I haven't designed before. 😊

And I got to spend a day in a country setting singing G&S with about 3 dozen like-minded folks.  I haven't done that in ages - great fun! 

  

This will be an easy one.

I just joined the hair & makeup crew for Legally Blonde, working for someone whose work I've admired.  As it happens, this one will be easy - although they loaded in today, they won't need me again until Wednesday, two days before we open.  Only 4 wigs involved, as the cast are mostly wearing their own hair and the makeup is nothing out of the ordinary.  Given all that, I'll probably end up doing more to help w/ costume changes than with hair or makeup.  So far, all I've done was steam most of the curl out of a wig; that took all of about 10 or 15 minutes.  Because I'm not the one in charge, I don't have to schlep wigs, wig heads, hairpins, or any of the other styling paraphernalia, just my purse, water bottle and hoodie.  Yep, definitely light duty.

Lady Bracknell

 I designed a production of The Importance of Being Earnest back in October.  Our Lady Bracknell is a big wig wearer, has an Instagram account where she models and discusses the many wigs in her collection.  When she was cast as Lady B, she bought herself a gray wig for me to style and asked me to take pictures of the steps in the process.  She used those photos to do a little video for her account, showing the before, during, and after.  Here's the link:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DBwPRdQuifV/