Surgery updates

Thyroid

Less than a month after his partial thyroidectomy, hubby already played softball again! The healing is amazing.
Below is a combination picture - taken less than 24 hours apart. The first one was taken shortly after surgery. Tape measure is around his neck to check for any swelling.
The next day, the tape measure was gone and he looked a little bit more "there"! The draining tube was removed about 24 hours after surgery and only left a small scab.

A week later, we had to go in for the stitches to be removed. Since it was only a single stitch, sort of like a blanket stitch (new to us!) I hardly had time to get the camera in place for a picture! He said it was more trouble to have the steri strips being pulled off than for the stitch to be removed.

The surgeon was happy with the result after seven days. We are still waiting for the pathology results of the removed half of the thyroid, though. I was hoping to have that ready and was holding off on this update for that reason.

Picture to the right was taken a week and one day after surgery, only hours after the stitch was removed.

Thank you for all the messages of concern and offers of help!

Meningioma

If you read a previous entry on this blog, you would know that I was diagnosed with a brain tumour, called a meningioma. My surgery is still scheduled for September 8 at Trillium hospital. By all accounts, their neurological department is excellent. (And it seems they have better coffee than Brampton Civic, which will be a plus! But I'm packing my rooibos teabags anyway.)

Realized last week I might need blood transfusion for my surgery. My sons have been blood donors for about 8 years, and I can use both their groups. I am A+; so is younger son and elder son is O+.  Called to ask if they can donate blood to be used for me, found out I would need about 2 litres during surgery. So that is in the works.

Blood Services Canada said  a parent can donate blood to be used for a child's surgery, but an adult child can't donate blood for a parent's surgery. Silly and makes utterly no sense! Now the surgeon's office is trying to let me know how we can go about using the boys' blood. Voicemail was garbled , though. I said if it is too much trouble, I'd just ask my sons and a few friends to go donate blood, which means the general pool gets replenished.

Oh yes, and the hair! So may people asked if I will have to shave my head. The surgeon said they'll shave what they need, but I decided to have fun with it. So did the hairdresser. She created a funky, spiky hairstyle, which will be cut once more before surgery and go quite a bit shorter. Another friend is making me a very bright hat so that people don't have to get sick when they look at me after surgery!

Here is a picture with a friend on the city plaza while we were enjoying the Farmer's Market. I'm the one on the right .... What do you think?

I'm still playing with it and learning how to do different things with the spikes. Part of it is adding some colour, using cream eye shadow. It works, and washes out with shampoo.

As for symptoms - headaches, fatigue (especially while working on the computer) and sometimes an unexplained twitch of the leg or arm might all have to do with the mushroom I'm growing in my head.

A very interesting year for us, indeed! 

Thank you to friends and family near and far, who carry us in thought and prayer. 

Of Prayer Shawls, Doxycycline and Vets

Prayer Shawl for a friend

Yesterday I was privileged to pass on a blessing to another friend in the form of this lovely shawl. Prayer shawls - I've found warmth, support, love and emotion in the shawls given to me.  There is one everywhere I go, ready at an instant's notice. The people who gave me the various shawls I use and have used, are special, close to my heart, supporters of my life. It is a gift to share with others, through the many people who spend hours knitting and creating these unique gifts.  

Prayer of Blessing: May God's grace be upon this shawl...warming, comforting, enfolding and embracing.May this mantle be a safe haven... a sacred place of security and well-being...sustaining and embracing in good times as well as difficult ones.May the one who receives this shawl be cradled in hope, kept in joy, graced with peace, and wrapped in love.Blessed Be!

 © 2013 All rights reserved.

By: Janet Bristow - 2000

  www.shawlministry.com

The next bit of this entry is a whine ... so please feel free to skip and start reading at the next bold line! 

My apologies. Disconnect. I'm feeling totally adrift and it has been increasing the last few days or two weeks. Noises from the neck again, which is stiffening up some nights. Sleep problems. Weight ballooning again. Had some weird bruises just appear. Hip pain. Nothing serious or like they were at the height of my Lyme fight. I've been off antibiotics now since February 8, was declared "in remission" on May 8. Everybody tells me how good I look. But I feel as if I'm no use to anyone and as if doing anything is a huge stretch. I try to walk every day, keep moving, even if just up and down stairs several times, but mostly outside to the mailbox on the corner and a bit down the street and back. 

Daily emails come in from people who have been bitten, or sick, or looking for treatment, desperately trying to find a doctor in our area. I'm so sick-and-tired-and-ashamed to write over and over again, there are no MDs available, and all the LLMDs are in the USA. Ours have been pushed out. And then to face the inevitable, "But why????" I'm ashamed because I've had treatment and that there's no easy answer to give to others who are struggling.  

My apologies, my good friends, if I'm absent or seemingly aloof. Don't mean anything by it but am helpless to stir myself. Just find days slipping away, disappearing while I sit and do nothing. Sit in the sunshine on a parking lot. Sit on the bed and almost watch TV. Sit in the car and watch the clouds. Sit with the laptop and look through hundreds of old pictures, but not reading emails or facebook, and not catching up with things like housework. Thanks to the friends who want to go out and meet for coffee, or enjoy a newly discovered place, or spend time at a friendly ball game, or plan to go away for a girlfriends' weekend. The joy I have while being with you, can never be explained. Thanks to my family for not moaning about the lack of vacuuming and dusting. 

Thank you for that and slap me out of my stupor somehow! 

Two upsetting articles to share

Maybe you know about this, maybe not. The first article here below really upset me. I checked with my pharmacy and found that the general price for Doxycycline in our area would be just over $1 per capsule ($82 / 100). A friend in South Africa checked and said the price there is about R25 for two weeks' supply, which translates to about $2.56. 

Now read this: Doxycline prices in the USA suddenly jump through the roof.
Article: Summer is Lyme Disease Season. The price of the drug to treat it just exploded.

Infection of Lyme disease through blood transfusions have long been a question I've asked, but it has always been waved away. A few months ago I spoke to a woman from the Canadian Blood Transfusion Clinic about Lyme disease. She said that someone who knows about a tick bite, should not donate blood for a few weeks, but can donate after 6 months because "the infection would then have been cleared from their system."   

I've now been sick since 2007, and been treated for very much longer than 6 months. Some people have been treated twice as long as I have, and they are still not well. I refer again to the Embers report which was mentioned on this blog in the post from October 25, 2012. 

Quote: "A new study by Drs. Monica Embers, Stephen Barthold and colleagues has found that the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) persist in monkeys after antibiotic treatment."  Read more 

Ehrlichiosis, Rare Tick Infection, Spread To 9-Year-Old Boy Via Blood Transfusion

 Article in the Huffington Post 

Warnings about tick populations exploding in the USA -- to vets, but not to humans? And any articles I've seen, even talking about Lyme disease, gives information about how to prevent tick bites but say nothing about how to find treatment. According to emails I've received, doctors are still showing patients the door when they come in to ask about Lyme disease. One man said he went in with a bulls eye rash and the tick still attached but he was assured it was nothing. 

Tick populations to explode in 2013

Quote: "For a number of reasons, tick populations in many areas of the country will likely explode this year, according to several parasitologists, so veterinarians should be vigilant about discussing preventives with clients."

Is 2013 the year of the tick?
Article found on the website of a vet's office in Etobicoke, near Toronto in the GTA - once again warning pet owners  LINK


Please be careful and vigilant without being paranoid!  More information always available from the CanLyme website, from the LDAO and other links on those sites.