Post-op Update

Dear friends and family-

First of all- Kent and I (and the kids of course) can't thank you all enough for all of your love, your prayers, your cards, your food, your childcare, your driving, your errand running, the flowers, your friendship and mostly just you all in our lives! We have eaten so well, we have cried and been held by family and friends, we have been entertained, our children have been entertained and driven around, our souls have been filled with love from everyone. Its been an overwhelming experience, but so wonderful to realize how loved we are and how many others we love in our lives! Who knew that such a frightening experience could have such a wonderful silver lining!

We wanted to send a final sort of update to let everyone know how these last 8 days of post-op time have gone. Here's the short and sweet to fill in the blanks... after a shorter surgery than expected and then an overnight of ICU due to breathing troubles (turns out to be an anxiety attack) we came home Wednesday afternoon last week and the hot flashes began and continual trembling (minus the 12 cups of coffee that I haven't had to bring them on), we ended up at the ER in Silverdale because of the trembling but everything turned up "normal" with no reason other than my body's reaction to medication for my side effects. Over the weekend I continued to tremble so we went to an Endocrinologist on Monday (a week after surgery) and discovered that if the trembling continues through the week he'll medicate to lower my heart rate, but that the thyroid seems to be "levelling out" and all my bloodwork is all within normal ranges. All of this trembling, brain fog, and hot flashes all seem to be my body's wacky way of recovering to major surgery and anesthesia. All good news , but it is taking patience to let it run its' course... so I'm trying to be patient to recover (not my best skill)! I finally had a post-op appt. today too, with the surgeon- Dr. Moore and he feels that I'm healing beautifully and just need to continue to "recover" over the next few weeks, so all was good!

As for my test results- turns out it is a "follicular adenoma". According to the pathology report a follicular adenoma is almost identical in cellular makeup to a follicular carcinoma... but mine fell short of the carcinoma diagnosis, so I'm free and clear! I was initially frustrated with this result, as I went through all of this and gained a 6 1/2 inch long necklace line incision for life for a benign growth... but I have since learned that since the cells are so similiar (this specific benign and cancerous follicular cell type) they can very easily turn cancerous over time and that the only way to rule out cancer is to actually do surgery because biopsies will always come up with the potential cancerous diagnosis due to their cellular similarity. Anyway, the long of th short of it is that it was a necessary surgery, and since I had a seasoned neck surgeon I was lucky to not lose the other half of my thryoid, and the outcom e is beyond positive! Maybe one day I'll even say it was an answer to prayers and the cancer was there, and was removed! I'm getting there.

Anyhow, to wrap it all up... our family could not have gotten through this wihout everyone! We are heading off to vacation tomorrow with the rest of the Hoepfinger family for a week, and look forward to some much deserved "vacation" and relaxation time.

Thank you again for EVERYTHING from all of you!!

Love,
Heather, Kent, Chloe and Blake
p.s. I attached a pic of the incision if you're curious... for those of you who aren't near and have asked what its like (supposedly its a beautiful incision and is healing faster and better than normal) . For everyone else, just pass it over!