| Blog Entry - Friday, October 29th, 2004 | Add / Read (0) |
Well, I still owe you guys an entry on Copenhagen to describe my free afternoon of walking around -- basically, I took a walk that was described in one of my guidebooks. It started at the National Opera house, went along the canal at Nyhaven, to the harbor, and all the way up to where the Little Mermaid statue is (stopping at a garden and the ramparts of where the Danish army used to be housed), and then back via Rosenborg Slot (the castle) and its park to the Stoget (the pedestrian district). Whew -- long walk, but I got some great pictures. As soon as I'm breathing normally again instead of rushing around like a mad chicken, I'll post those and do a bit more of a description of the trip. Until then, you can read Chris's blog for most of the food stops during the week, except the night he had Domino's, I was eating a burger in the bar, and I'd had Domino's on Friday night...
Why, you may ask, are you rushing around like a mad chicken, Libby? Well, that's a good question. I got back from Copenhagen on Friday evening. Saturday, I spent the day at the Texas Renaissance Festival with some good friends of mine, and then I rushed home in the late afternoon, after a very soggy RenFest trip, to change into my costume for a masquerade party that night. Sunday was filled with the usual Sunday-type things, and then Monday, I went for my appointment with the surgeon. They move faster than I expected, so I've had a lot to do to get my life ready for me not to be in it for a week or so...
I'll be having surgery this coming Monday to remove at least one lobe of my thyroid, possibly the whole thing, depending on what they find when they're in there. They remove one lobe and then let the pathologist do a frozen section biopsy while I'm in surgery to try to determine whether there's cancer present. Of course, from what I've been told and read, the frozen section is notorious for false negatives, so they do a more in-depth test over the next few days. So, they might come back and say... well, we know we told you everything was ok and you don't have cancer, but we were wrong -- we have to do another surgery. Let's hope that's not what happens.
Anyway, assuming they don't find cancer, they close me up and I go on with my life, albeit with half a thyroid, possible medication for the rest of my life, and a cool scar on my throat (I plan to blame the scar on the vampires, but...). And hopefully none of the
If they do find any cancer, they remove the whole thyroid, trying like hell not to accidentally remove all the cool little parathyroid glands, and then I get to do some lovely radioactive iodine treatments (there's a new alternative, but I don't think it's out there for use yet...) to kill any remaining thyroid cells that have cancer in them that may have migrated somewhere else in my body.
I'm in good company if it does turn out to be thyroid cancer, as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court just had a similar surgery. They haven't said what type of cancer it is (there are four types of thyroid cancer), but my doctor has already said that what I have is either a follicular adenoma or a follicular carcinoma, so I'm not the most common form (if it is cancer) but still a fairly treatable form.
Anyway, I'll be in Methodist hospital on Monday and Tuesday (probably out sometime Tuesday, assuming everything goes well), and I'll be out of it for most of the rest of next week. I probably won't be online much until after Nov. 6th or so... The usual suspects have offered to keep an eye on my blog and give you some interesting things to read. They may even have an update on how the surgery went.
Have a good week and think good thoughts!
Author: Libby
Posted at: 06:18:15 PM
