Sweet relief

The surgery on Thursday went well.  I spent another lovely night at Central Baptist Hospital.  Don't get me wrong: the people are really nice there, but I quickly grew weary of being woken up every three hours, sleeping with an oxygen mask on, and being fed orange Jello and beef broth.  I got to go home pretty early on Friday morning, and as if the whole ordeal hadn't been bizarre enough, leaving the hospital was even more bizarre.  The nurse refused to unhook me from the IV until I ate solid food, but she wouldn't give me any solid food.  She also insisted that I sleep in the oxygen mask even though my oxygen sats were fine.  After the shift change, I got a new nurse who was on duty when I was discharged.  She and the student nurse who was shadowing her unhooked me from everything, and then the nurse proceeded to tell me that when my ride arrived, I could go ahead and just leave.  All I had to do was wave to the nurses at the nurses' station and tell them I was leaving.  By myself.  On my own two legs.  Without a wheelchair.  I mean, I was perfectly capable of walking to the elevator and to the front door alone, but I found it odd that the nurse would let me go alone due to liability.  As I was walking down the hall to leave, a staff member stopped me and said, "What are you doing?  Does your nurse know you're walking down the hallway?"  When I told her that my nurse not only knew but TOLD me to do it, the woman just shook her head and said, "Okay, good luck."

I was so glad to have Nicole, my parents, and Trevor's parents in town to help me with the kids.  I was able to take a nap (if you count four hours as a nap) on Friday and another nap on Saturday.  Lovely!  Trevor stayed home with me on Friday just to make sure everything was okay.  Either that or he wanted to nap, too, so he could stay up for the UK basketball game Friday night.  Other than fatigue, I have been feeling pretty good and slathering my sweet scar with vitamin E oil as often as I can.

On Monday, I had my first appointment with my endocrinologist, Dr. Wendell Miers.  (He is really cool, by the way.)  He was able to get into the CBH computer and see my biopsy results from Thursday.  Drum roll, please...

There was NO cancer in the second lobe that was removed.  Not only was there that amazing news, but I also don't have to do the radioactive iodine treatment.  Dr. Miers started me on Synthroid to regulate the level of thyroid hormone in my body, and I will continue to do checkups with him every three months, then every six, and eventually once a year.

I knew in my heart that everything was going to be okay, but hearing the news for sure was a huge relief.  All I wanted to do was go home and sleep for twelve hours because I felt completely weightless for the first time in a long time.  I didn't get to do that, of course, but last night's sleep was one of the best I have had in a long, long, long time.

I truly appreciate all of the thoughts, prayers, and kind words that you have all sent my way.  I know that every bit of love has helped me and my family get through this rough, insane, and emotional time.  Thank you all!

Now that I am cancer-free, I can get to the business of packing up the house.  But that's a whole other blog...

My Rocky Mountain High

I was lucky enough to travel to Colorado recently to visit my BFF, Tiffany.  The travel itself was exhausting and crazy, as it always is, but it was worth every second.

I was supposed to fly from Lexington to Dallas then Dallas to Denver on Thursday night.  I arrived at the airport in Lexington with plenty of time to check in and get through security.  Turns out I was really super-early as there was terrible weather in Dallas, and I wasn't able to leave Thursday night at all.  I went home, slept for a few hours, and arrived back at the airport on Friday at 4:30 AM.  After hours and hours of traveling, I arrived in Denver around 9:00 AM.  Tiffany was there waiting to whisk me away to Fort Collins.

I spent Friday morning hanging out with Tiffany at her amazing house with the beautiful view of the mountains.  Tiffany's decorating is the perfect combination of eclectic, funky, vintage, and comfortable.  Simply put, it's stunning.  We spent Friday afternoon walking around Old Town, and then I got to see my other fantastic friend, Mike.  Tiffany, Mike, and I were all friends at Butler University, and we have remained friends ever since.  The three of us got lots of treats from Whole Foods and cracked up the rest of the night.  There was even a genuine spit-take from Mike.  Classic.

How gorgeous is this guest room in Tiffany's house?  

Saturday morning, Tiffany and I drove up to Estes Park.  We had huge plans to stay at the Stanley Hotel; the Stanley is what inspired Steven King to write _The Shining._   We were even going to stay in the room where he stayed: room 217.  We were on the road, about five minutes from the hotel, when Tif's phone rang.  Someone from the Stanley was calling to say that a pipe had burst and we couldn't use the room.  Now, if you know Tiffany, you know she rarely gets mad.  This was one of the times I could feel the rage coming off her in waves.  The woman from the Stanley ended up giving us another room for free and threw in breakfast as well.  We were disappointed, but really, we just wanted the bragging rights of staying in room 217.  We decided to make the best of a free room, and we went on our way.

After checking in, we went to our lovely room with this view:

Incredible!  The day before, I was in Kentucky: now I got to look at the Rocky Mountains!  The only problem with the room was that it was 81 degrees, and the Stanley doesn't have air-conditioning.  We turned off the heat, opened the windows, and prayed it would cool off before bedtime.  We had a bite to eat (and maybe a drink) in the hotel restaurant before our ghost tour.  Spooooky!  Our tour guide, Teri, was very sweet and knowledgable about the history of the Stanley hotel.  It was really fascinating to hear how it all was started and what has happened on the grounds.  Tif and I, as usual, cracked each other up during the tour, but we were also respectful of Teri and the rest of the group.  I did ask Teri if she knew about the "burst pipe" in room 217, and she didn't know anything about it.  There was some sort of paranormal conference that weekend with famous paranormal experts.  Tif and I think that someone else offered to pay out the nose for room 217, hence the burst pipe story.

This is my "Will there be ghosts in our room tonight?" face

After the ghost tour, we hung out in the room for a while and watched _The Shining_ which plays on a continuous loop on the hotel's TV system.  We had another quick bite in the restaurant, then headed out for ghost stories by the campfire.  We assumed that this would take place outside because that's where campfires are, right?   We even stopped by the gift shop and bought matching furry hats because it was chilly up in the mountains at night.  The sign even said that blankets would be provided, and we were ready for some marshmallows and specters.  We bundled up and wandered the grounds looking for the fire.  We finally found it...in a fireplace.  The ghost stories were INSIDE.  We laughed and took a seat, but after about fifteen minutes, we had to flee.  It was about 85 degrees in that room, and we just couldn't take it anymore.  Then we thought we would treat ourselves to dessert from room service, but every time we called the room service number, we got the restaurant's voicemail.  Sigh.  In addition, the room had only cooled down to a balmy 74 degrees or so.  We reluctantly closed the curtains for the night so we wouldn't wake up with the sun, turned off the tv, and went to bed.  (This is an important detail.)

A trick of the light or purple orbs at the end of the hall?  

The next morning, we woke up a little late due to the time change.  Darn you, Daylight Savings!  We went to the restaurant and ordered about five things on the menu because, you know, it was free!  During breakfast, I thought to ask Tiffany if she had closed the doors to the TV armoire sometime in the night.  She hadn't. As I hadn't either, we wondered how the doors closed.  After breakfast, we went back to our room and experimented with the armoire doors.  It would have taken a fair bit of force to get those doors shut; we knew it wasn't the wind because we had closed the curtains in the night and no breeze had gotten through.  Did a friendly visitor shut the doors for us?  Maybe.  There have been numerous reports of strange happenings in room 413, so perhaps we didn't need room 217 after all.

Ghosts!  Specters!  Haints!  We're scared!  (But we're also adorbs in our matching hats.)

We left Estes Park Sunday morning and did a bit of shopping in Boulder.  We also met Mike again for dinner at the Happy Sumo, and the sushi was incredible.  We picked up Tiffany's daughter in Thornton where she had spent an exciting weekend with her grandparents, and we were off again to Fort Collins.  We stayed up as late as we could Sunday night to squeeze in every last minute we could together.  Sadly, I realized that I'm not twenty anymore, and I didn't make it too late before I had to go to bed.  I blame the altitude for my exhaustion because it certainly can't be that I'm getting older.

My trip was over way too soon.  Tiffany and Frankie took me to the airport Monday morning.  It took no time to get through security, and I meandered through the airport for a while, sniffing back tears because I already missed my friends.  My flight boarded, and then we were stuck on the tarmac for a while because there was bad weather in Chicago.  We finally arrived in the Windy City, and I had an almost three hour layover.  After three gate changes, I finally got on a plane to Lexington and arrived home around 10:00 PM.

The visit was way too short, but it was fantastic.  It was just what I needed before I start the insanity of the next few months.  There's nothing like good friends to make a girl feel better about anything that may be worrying her.  Thanks, Tiffany and Mike, for showing me such an amazing time.  Love you guys!  And thanks to Trevor for taking such good care of the kids while I was gone.  You're a good man, T.

The Blight

Last Friday afternoon, I got a phone call from Amy, my surgeon's assistant, with the results of the biopsy.  The conversation only lasted a few minutes, and I really only heard one word: cancer.

I spent the rest of that afternoon in a sort of fugue state.  My mind sort of went all blank and fuzzy; it wasn't entirely unpleasant, to tell you the truth.  Amy had assured me that the doctor got all of the cancer when he removed the left lobe of the thyroid and that I shouldn't worry.  Uh huh.  Thanks, Amy.  I had so many questions, but I knew I had to wait until my follow-up appointment on Thursday to get answers from my doctor.  I didn't think about it too much the rest of the weekend because we were busy and I didn't see the point in worrying.  After all, the cancer was gone, and considering I didn't find out about it until after the fact, there was no point in getting all worked up about it.

That worked pretty well until today.  My surgeon called this afternoon, and as soon as I heard him identify himself, I knew something was up.  My appointment with him was in less than 48 hours: why call me now?  He said that the pathology report showed signs of capsular invasion, and he said the other lobe of my thyroid needs to come out.  Soon.  The good news is that there is no sign of the cancer in my lymph nodes, so hopefully the removal of the rest of the thyroid will make certain that never happens.

The woozy feeling returned; again, it wasn't a bad feeling.  There may have been a teeny bit of denial thrown in for good measure.  As I made the kids dinner, I thought, "Huh.  I have cancer."  Although I know it's real, it doesn't seem real quite yet.  In fact, it seems downright surreal that in a couple of weeks, I'll go back to the same hospital to have the same incision opened and wake up in the same recovery room.  As much as I don't want to go through it all again, I know that I don't have a choice.  I need to get this out of my body and start healing.

The doctor wanted to do the surgery next week, but he agreed to wait two weeks so I could go on a planned trip out of town.  I made sure that waiting won't jeopardize my health in any way, and I'll reconfirm that on Thursday.  I need this trip, though.  I'm going to visit my BFF in Colorado for a few days of fun, visiting with friends, Chinese food, trashy TV, shopping, more Chinese food, a stay at the famed Stanley Hotel, and a lot of laughing.

The Stanley Hotel where Stephen King got the inspiration to write _The Shining_.  Squeeeee!!!

I'm really not too freaked out, all in all.  I have faith that everything is going to turn out just fine.  And I can't let this consume me, my family, and my life.  Plus, my badass scar will be even more badass the second time around.  I didn't think I could get much cooler than I already am, but apparently, I can.  And I will.

Inconclusive

So, a week ago, I had a hemithyroidectomy.  Before you rush to google, a hemithyroidectomy is when half of one's thyroid is removed.  And I have a pretty badass scar to flaunt.   

You should see the other guy...

 

During the surgery, the left lobe of my thyroid was removed and sent to pathology.  The initial results looked good; there was no invasion of bad cells.  The sample was then sent off for a more thorough test and was to be returned within 48 hours.  I spent Friday night in the hospital - ugh - and was able to go home Saturday late-morning.  I felt pretty good, albeit hungry after a diet of beef broth and gelatin.  I took a 3 hour nap (!) on Saturday afternoon, and by Sunday, I felt almost back to normal.

Monday and Tuesday came and went without any word from the doctor about the second pathology report.  I started calling on Wednesday, and I finally got someone to call me back Thursday afternoon.  Apparently the results were inconclusive and the sample was sent somewhere else for a second opinion.  Okay.  When I asked the nurse who called me what that meant, she said, "Well, inconclusive means the doctor couldn't make a determination one way or another from the sample."  Gee, thanks for the vocabulary lesson.  So now I wait until the second opinion comes back.

I think everyone else around me is far more freaked out about the inconclusive result than I am.  I'm surprisingly Zen about the whole thing.  I mean, there isn't anything I can do about it but wait.  No matter what the new results are, everything is going to be fine.  I figure that the universe wouldn't mess with me after it waited so long to send me my beautiful family and my beautiful life.  

The only problem now, other than the waiting, is the fatigue.  Holy cow, am I tired.  And it's not just the kind of tired after missing a few nights of sleep.  This is the kind of tired that makes me completely unable to function.  I have headaches with the fatigue, and all I want to do is lie on the couch.  That's not the kind of wife and mother I want to be. 

I have an appointment with an endocrinologist, but I can't get in to see him for two weeks.  I called my GP and basically begged to be seen, and I have an appointment with her today at noon.  I can deal with a heck of a lot, but I can't deal with being so rundown that I can't interact with my family and friends.  Keep your fingers crossed for me that we can find a solution to get me back to my former energy level.

I wouldn't have been able to do all of this without the support and help of my family and friends, especially Trevor, my parents, and Nicole.  Knowing that I have people behind me and cheering me on is the best thing in the world.  And thanks to all of you who have asked how I am and sent encouraging messages.  You guys rock!!!!  

Goin' Back to Indiana

When I was sixteen, I couldn't wait to get out of my small town.  I dreamed of living in a big city, living footloose and fancy-free.  I stayed in Indianapolis after I graduated from Butler and lived a great life...for a while.  After a particularly rough patch, I moved back to Valparaiso because I needed to be home.  I bought a house, had a great job, incredible friends, and my amazing family.  I stayed for a few years, and then I moved to Lexington to start my life with Trevor.  I like Lexington a lot; it's a fantastic city with a small-town feel.  I have some pretty fabulous friends here and a home that I have worked hard to fill with beauty and love. But lately, I have felt like something was missing.  It took a little while for me to realize that what I have been missing is home.

Lexington is my adopted home, but Valpo will always be where my heart is.  My family is there, my friends are there, and Chicago is pretty darn close.  It seems as though the Wells family is ready for a change, so we're heading to Indiana.  Trevor is ready to get a buzz cut and bust out the Picket Fence on a regular basis.  (If you are scratching your head at that reference, you haven't seen the movie Hoosiers enough times.  Go watch it.  I'll wait.)

So, yeah.  We're moving.  If you had asked me five years ago if we would ever move my family to Valpo, I probably would have given you a blank stare.  But there is something about having kids that makes one long for a sense of family.  We're going to live in my parents' neighborhood: according to my friend Tiffany, that's either genius or insane.  My kids will go to the same schools that my niece and nephew attended.  We'll live about 1/10th of a mile from my brother, sister-in-law, and their family. It's going to be fantastic, chaotic, agitating, soothing, and gratifying.

 The details: Trevor will continue to work for Miller Wells, but he'll work remotely from home.  He'll still have to come back to Lexington once a month or so for meetings, court appearances, or just to get away from being at home with me 24/7.  (I kid.  I kid!)  My parents are keeping their condo here in town, so we'll all have a place to stay when we come back to visit or when Trevor comes back to work.  Our new home is nothing like our current home.  Although I adore our historic home on a beautiful street close to downtown, I'm looking forward to having a newer house with windows that open (!) and less square footage for me to clean.  It also has a totally sweet theater room in the finished, daylight basement.  I will miss the quirky character and beauty of our almost-one-hundred-year-old house, but I'm eager to make our new house into our home.  (And if you know anyone who is looking for a fantastic house in the Bluegrass, here it is: our home listing.)

Although I will be a Midwest housewife when we move in the summer, I'm going to keep the name of my blog.  I started writing as a housewife of the Bluegrass, and changing the name of the blog just doesn't feel right.  I put myself out there as Real Housewife of the Bluegrass, and that is what I'll stay.

I'm going to miss lots of things about Lexington: the family and friends we have here, our babysitter who has become a member of the family, walking to the local park, the huge public library, the wonderful preschool both kids attend, Cajun fast food, the Kentucky theater, the complete panic when there is a threat of snow...wait, no.  I won't miss that at all.  Lexington has been good to me for almost seven years and I know it will be a period of huge transition for all of us.  But I know in my heart that as long as I'm with the people I love, I'll be home.

That's amore

Due to the wacky winter weather, we have been spending a lot of time outdoors lately.  It's good for the kids, and it's good for the grown-ups to get some fresh air and move.

Trevor and I took Lottie and Dallas to the park yesterday to play.  At first, we were the only ones there, but soon a boy and his dad showed up at the skate park adjacent to the playground.  The boy skated for a while, then yelled to me, "Excuse me, can I play with you guys?"  He happily played with Lottie for a while, chasing and laughing like only little kids can do.  Soon, Lottie walked over to me with her head down.  When I asked what was wrong, she said her new friend, Georgie, had decided to go play with his friend.  She said, "I guess he would rather play with his friend than me."  I explained to her that Georgie had probably planned to meet his friend, who also had a board, to skate at the park, and it would be rude to ignore him.  She seemed to understand and played with Dallas for a few minutes.

Her gaze kept straying to the skate park that had filled up with quite a few tween boys.  Eventually, she shyly asked if we could go watch them.  We sat on the bench in front of the skaters and watched them do ollies and drop-ins and whatever else skater boys do.  Georgie skated past us, smiled and waved to Lottie, then did some sort of trick.  Lottie gazed up at me with stars in her eyes and said, "Oh, Mommy.  He's the best one!"

I felt my stomach drop.  No, no, no.  She isn't supposed to be having crushes yet!  She's only five years old, for Pete's sake!  This isn't supposed to happen for ten years or so!  But there she sat, smiling and blushing, watching Georgie and his friends.  We stayed for twenty minutes or so, and I told her it was time to leave.  She heaved a big sigh and stared at Georgie with her big, blue eyes shining like the sun.  I said she could go up to the fence to say goodbye to him, and she bashfully waved.  As we walked away, she turned and yelled, "You can come over to my house tomorrow!"  I'm sure he didn't hear her, but she skipped away happily.

It's hard to describe the emotions I felt as I watched her.  She's growing up, but she's still just a little girl - MY little girl.  Georgie was sweet to her, even with his friends around, but some day, some boy won't be sweet and he'll break her heart.  And in that moment when she's crying to me and I'm trying to soothe her, I'll remember when she was five and it was all pretty simple.

The Empress of All Maladies

As a kid, I was pretty healthy.  I never broke a bone, I never had to go to the ER: nothing serious.  I had the usual illnesses like colds, the flu, and chicken pox, but overall, things were pretty normal.

Fast forward to my adult years.  Things were pretty status quo until I got married.  (Does that mean I get to blame Trevor for my issues?)  Since being with Trevor, my surgery quotient has definitely been on the rise.  In January of 2007, I had my first C-section.  (Trevor's fault.) That was followed by another C-section in September of 2008.  (Again, Trevor's fault.) A mere five months later, I had my gallbladder removed after months and months of lots of pain.  (The doctor said that having close pregnancies can cause gallbladder issues, so I can indirectly blame Trevor for that.) Somehow, I made it through 2010 with no real concerns other than two nutty kids.  2011 brought shoulder surgery for a torn labrum.  The first time I hurt myself, it was at the Porter County Fair on as ride.  Yep, I hurt myself on a fair ride.  I was trying to twist the steering wheel of a teacup ride while my right arm while holding Dallas steady with my left arm.  (I can blame Trevor for that because he was in Lexington working while I was in Valpo with the kids.  Sketchy, I know, but I'm going to roll with it.)  Then in late 2011, my hairdresser noticed a few bumps on my scalp and advised me to get them checked out.  I went to the dermatologist who told me that I had a staph infection.  WHAT?  How does a stay-at-home-mom get a staph infection?  I don't know, either. ( Unfortunately, I can't blame Trevor for that one.  Sigh.)

As if that hasn't been enough, it seems as though I have gotten seriously clumsy in 2012.  In the first 13 days of this year, I have burned my arm on a baking rack in the oven, fallen on the ice while taking out the garbage cans and smashing my head against one, and I burned my lips on some sort of corrosion when I was trying to change the batteries in an old flashlight.  It's like my brain has turned to some sort of fuzzy mush this year.  Maybe the Apocalypse really is coming.

Let's add one more, shall we?  While we were visiting my family in Valpo over the holidays, I had a few days of terrible headaches and nausea.  I soon started to realize that I wasn't sick to my stomach, but there was a really weird lump in my throat that was causing me to feel nauseous.  And I have never been one to have headaches, so that was a little disconcerting.  I made an appointment to see my doctor in Lexington, and she advised me to get an ultrasound of my neck.  The ultrasound results showed a multinodal enlargement of my thyroid.  In other words, I have a goiter.  Oh. Em. Gee.  A goiter???  That's totally not what I was expecting.  So next Thursday, I have to go have a Fine-Needle Aspiration of the nodules at Central Baptist Hospital.  I'm not really worried; my doctor said that 99% of multinodular goiters are benign.  I have to go by myself, though, because Trevor has to stay home with the kids.  (Speaking of Trevor, I can't blame The Goiter on him.  I'm looking for a way, though, so I'll let you know.)  For now, though, I'm using The Goiter to my advantage: "I get to choose what we watch on TV tonight; I have a goiter, you know."

None of these are terribly serious matters, but they do make me realize that I'm getting older and I need to take good care of myself.  I want to be around as long as possible so I can laugh hysterically when my kids call me for advice about their own nutty kids.  Isn't that what being a grandparent is all about?