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So the bottom line is the surgery apparently went well. Of course the schedule got screwed up (my surgery was moved 2 hours earlier but no one notified us) so I ended up not getting into the OR until about 2pm. Surgery was done by 5pm, but I ended up staying in recovery until 1030pm because they didn't have any rooms ready. Which was OK by me since all I was doing during that time was alternating between sleeping and puking. Apparently I don't do anasthesia well. It took until about mid morning yesterday before I was able to hold down liquids. Once I could hold down some chicken soup I was ready to get out of there, got home about 3pm, and was in the shower by 330 trying to wash off the hospital smell.

According to the surgeon, the nodules on my thyroid looked "clean", which means that they were self-contained, not invading any other tissues, and his initial impression was that they didn't look cancerous. Pathology results should be done within the next couple of days and will hopefully back that up.

Everyone--doctors, nurses, hospital volunteers--was kind, informative, caring and (except for having to wait about 30 minutes at 4am for help going to the bathroom) responsive. Before the surgery, both the surgeon and the anathesiologist came over and explained everything they were going to be doing and asked if I had any questions. My surgeon and my primary care doc both came and checked in on me first thing the next morning. My only complaint was that the hospital nurses couldn't find a vein to save their lives. (I had to have blood drawn a few times to check my calcium levels and now have bruises all up and down my right arm.) It makes me really appreciate the nurse in my doctor's office, who always gets the vein on the first try and never hurts.

I haven't had much pain at all beyond the first few hours out of surgery. My neck is pretty stiff and sore, but I haven't had to hit the pain meds, which I'm grateful for. There's enough of a chemistry set still probably floating around in my system (which I'm doing my damndest to flush out by drinking gallons of water) that I don't want to add anything to the mix that I don't absolutely have to. I'm feeling pretty good considering the surgery was less than 48 hours ago, and look forward to getting back up to speed.