Good afternoon my friends.
It’s that time of year again. The time of year when hundreds (thousands?) of vehicles are making their way from all over the world to Las Vegas in addition to 100,000+ people for the SEMA show. What an exciting time to be involved in the automotive industry. I and several others from Seattle are heading down tomorrow morning for a full week of fun, memories, catching up with those that we see once a year and just general good times. Luckily, I was able to upgrade to first class when I checked in this morning!
I’m also going into the week as a bit of a celebration as I’m about to wrap up my first year of cancer treatment and monitoring at the end of the month. I wasn’t really able to enjoy the show like I normally do last year with everything that was going on and receiving my diagnosis just the week prior, now we’re past the hard part and moving onto getting things back to a new normal. I’ll be able to have a great time without worrying about a major surgery.
However, on the other hand, I will be having another surgery at the end of the month, just 3 days before the 1 year mark from my Thyroidectomy and Neck dissection and 2 days before Thanksgiving. Pretty sure I’ll have a lot of be thankful for on Thanksgiving! This time, they’ll be making another incision in my neck and placing a silicone implant in my neck to help push my right vocal cord over so it’s closer to midline with the left side. If necessary, they’ll also be moving the vocal cord up so it sits more level with the left side as well. This surgery is called a Thyroplasty with Arytenoid Adduction. I likely still won’t have my old voice back #sadface, I just hope it’s better than the one I have now. I kinda miss the ol’ Batman voice that I had after surgery though, if I could have that voice without losing my breath and the swallowing problems that came along with it, it’d be awesome. Hahaha! I’ll be in the hospital overnight so they can monitor my breathing and watch for internal bleeding. Extremely small chance of complications, like 1-2%, so not too worried about it. I have complete trust in Dr. Merati, he said he does around 30 of the operations a year and his sole focus is on voice problems. I really like the fact that there’ll be UW students in the operating room learning about the procedure while it’s happening. I feel like they’re helping me, while I’m able to help them, that’s a cool feeling.
Had my pre-op appointments on Monday, needless to say, I didn’t really enjoy them. I didn’t really see the point in them, and we didn’t really talk about anything I didn’t already know. Good news though is that although I ate like crap the week prior, I still lost 4 pounds over the 2 weeks since my last appointment! I’m now 10 pounds away from my goal of losing 100 in a year with one month to go! So stinking proud and happy! When I went to the pre-anesthesia appointment she asked me a bunch of questions that I had already answered on a piece of paper before the first appointment. She also noticed that I had/have Thyroid Cancer and admitted to not knowing much about what the Thyroid does other than regulating your body temperature. Uh… you really have no idea HOW MANY functions of your body depend on your Thyroid. I mentioned that I get tired in the afternoon. She immediately jumped at Sleep Apnea as being a cause of it, she even measured my neck and said that a large neck is one sign. WHAT?! Sleep Apnea was brought up after my surgery when I was in the hospital too. I don’t have a problem sleeping though. Again, you just told me that you don’t know what the Thyroid does, guess what controls your metabolism and energy levels? Oh. Right. The gland that I no longer have. I have to take my thyroid hormones all in the morning. I don’t get the chance to take them throughout the day like a normal functioning thyroid would do. She even went and got another doctor to look at me. She said she was worried that I’m at risk for a car accident in the afternoon… I wanted to smack her. “I don’t get that tired!” I said. She said, “Oh, I get that way sometimes in the afternoon too.” Then she left. Luckily, that was the last time I really need to talk to her. She gave me a bunch of reading material and some paperwork for me to fill out for power of attorney and if I’d like to be put on life-support if it came to that. I left and went to work in a bad mood because of that experience. Not to mention, I didn’t get the hot college nurses either. Maybe they’ll be there for the surgery. Hahaha! J
Went to my first concert in a loooong time this week. Jason asked me if I wanted to go see J. Cole and Wale perform. Being a big fan of Wale, I was all for it. Only to find out that Wale didn’t make it. Uh, lame. J. Cole did put on a good show though, and the tickets were free, so could I really complain much? Nah. Being able to see Kris and Chieko was pretty awesome too!
Found out a friend of mine doesn’t like peanut butter. What. How is that possible? Peanut butter Chocolate Chip cookies? Peanut butter blossom cookies? HOW COULD YOU NOT LIKE PEANUT BUTTER? I have to work on getting her to change her opinion on peanut butter. It’s only for the best.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to spending some time with a lot of you next week in Vegas! Let’s make some memories together! For everyone else, let’s get together soon!
Incidental Contemplations 