Not in the plan...

Hi Everyone, hope you are all well?

I had my surgery of total thyroidectomy, right sided parathyroidectomy and central & right neck dissection a couple of weeks ago.

Initially, everything was fine and dandy, apart from having a very sore bottom from being on the operating table for around 8 hours!

I was commenced on levothroxin the first day post op and also calcium supplements as the right side of my parathroid was taken out at he same time.  

A couple of days after the surgery I started to experience pins and needles in my hands, feet and face but the team didn't seem to worried, saying that is common and my remaining parathyroids would start producing enough PTH to level off my calcium levels accordingly.

Sadly though, this didn't happen....I woke up one morning to find more pins and needles to such an extent it felt I was trying to finely debone a fish wearing mittens lined with lead!  My hands closed up and I started losing the ability to speak along with suffering from laryngeal spasms meaning my airway was unstable...

Thankfully the patient opposite me saw I was struggling and raised the concern and in seconds I had the crash team working around me.  I had gone into tetany, where my muscles had fully constricted and contracted...the muscles were burning with lactic acid build up and I have genuinely never experienced pain like it...I honestly thought as my airway kept closing over that I was going to die....

During the scariest moments it was really weird, I was terrified, thinking about my family and what would happen, yet I was more upset that I was going to miss our Puppy grow up!!

After a lot of morphine and several calcium infusions things settled down but it meant I had an extra 4 nights in hospital having regular blood tests to monitor calcium levels and further infusions.

I was discharged home a week after my initial admission and was doing ok until this Sunday morning when the pins and needles and tetany returned which resulted in another admission and further infusions...

My calcium levels have now levelled off after another increase in my medication so fingers crossed things settle down!

Due to start Radioiodine treatment shortly, so I'm praying that is going to be an utter anti climax and simply involve me being alone in a room for a few days!!