Yesterday was three weeks since the surgery, although it has felt like much longer to me. My voice is still slowly improving but some days it gets so weak I can't speak at a normal volume. I made the mistake of going on a bike ride a few days ago and since then my neck has hurt quite a lot and my chest feels like I have been coughing hard even though I haven't been so I am back to convalescing which is not as fun as it might seem. I'm finishing a novel every couple of days because I'm too tired to do anything but read most of the time.
The incision itself is healing up fairly well. It is still sensitive, though. I have to get up at the same time every morning to take my medications and then wait an hour before I can eat which I never thought would be a problem given that normally I'm awake by 8 am every day but waking up at 9 am has been a struggle. I've had this strange burning sensation. I don't feel warm but I feel like I'm in fire inside. The medication is supposed to make me mildly hyperthyroid in order to shutdown the feedback loop that produces TSH so maybe that is the cause.
I got the letter today detailing my appointments. I'll be having my radiation treatment starting on the 14th of August so I should be done with it just in time for my birthday. Not having cancer anymore might possibly be the best present I've ever gotten. On the 21st I'll have a whole body scan done looking to see if there are any more spots of cancer. Essentially they'll be looking for spots where a lot of the radiation has collected which would indicated that the cells there are taking up the radiation with the iodine. I am fairly confident they won't find anything, but right now the name of the game is, "better safe than sorry."
In the meanwhile I've been trying to figure out what is going to happen after the radiation. My medical expenses so far seem under control but the financial aid from the hospital won't pay rent or buy groceries so at some point before the year is out I need to figure out whether I'm going back to school or work. I can't restart my program at school until next year, but I could take classes for a certificate until then, or I could try to find a job that would be flexible with respect to school. I'm trying not to obsess about it because I really do still need this time to recover.
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