My Cancer Story

Part 4 - Getting that beast removed

Part 4 - Getting that beast removed

(Period of time: 4th of Sept and three days afterwards)

Next morning, next surgery, same procedure. The only difference was that Manuel wasn't in the OP and the guy who worked there today, wasn't that nice. He WAS nice and talked to me too, but only the usual small talk. Before the surgery I've told them that I had problems with the anesthesia last time (because I had to puke), so this time they didn't put a mask over my face and let me breath. Nope. They gave me an injection and everything spun around and it went faster and faster and I thought I had to vomit right there, but then I everything went dark... 

When I woke up, I saw the doctors and nurses coming to me (still a bit blurry). They asked me if I felt alright and I said that I had to pee very very urgent. Haha. Probably a side action from the anesthesia. 

They brought me back to my room and I could pee. Mrs. Elsner was lying on her bed, Gerd on the chair on the opposite wall. She was complaining about something, as usual, but I stopped listening to what she said. I lay there next to her, when suddenly Gerd said: "Hey, your roommate was just operated!"  

I thought that this was very sweet of him, because he wanted her to be a bit more quiet, but she just kept on talking. 

The worst part about the second surgery was that I now had two thin hoses coming out on the left and on the right of my neck. On the end of each hose there was a little glass container and the rest of the blood that came out of my neck ran through those hoses into the containers. It was just gross! I could only sleep on my back, because of the hoses and because it'd hurt too much and I couldn't move my head to the side. Every time I had to go to the toilet, I had to take the glass things with me and place them in front of me on the bathroom floor.  

I felt really sick and damaged the whole time. I had to puke very often without a reason. I jst didn't feel good. A really bad thing was the orange germicide that they've put all over my neck, my chest and up to my chin. This stuff smells! Really really bad!! And I had to smell it 24h a day. Another thing was that they've marked my whole neck (and up to my chin) with dotted lines and letters and normal lines, to check where they had to cut. So the first time I looked into the mirror I thought that I had bruises everywhere because they had used really thick black and blue markers!  

On the second day Uschi came in and said very quiet and with a smile: "We're going to move you to an empty room that we got left, so that you don't have to stay here with this annoying lady." She winked at me and together with a male nurse they pushed my bed into the other room. It was so much better! I was alone, I could listen to music without her complaining and could do what I want! Well, when I wasn't sleeping... 

Another thing that lighted up the life in hospital was that pretty often a nurse came in when another nurse was already with me. At first I thought the first one forgot something but then both of them started to gossip about Mrs. Elser! It was so funny to listen to them and sometimes they even asked me for my opinion.  

I basically lived of tea and rusk and swallowing hurt! You only notice what you need your neck muscles for, when you shouldn't move too much. Swallowing hurt, talking hurt (I still couldn't talk properly, we didn't know why), laughing hurt,... 

One day my parents visited me with my siblings and we played ludo, but it was so funny and we had to laugh so much, but it HURT!!! Aaggghh :D it was funny though. 

My doctor entered the room with some student doctors and said: "Nice to hear laughter for a chance." 

My parents and siblings had to leave because the doctors make they're ward round. The young doctors were really funny. Things like that always made my day. 

On my penultimate day Uschi came again and said that they had an emergency patient and had to move me back to Mrs. Elsner's room... I wasn't really happy about that, but there was only one night to stay there left.  

On the morning of my last day my doctor came in and said that he wanted to remove the hoses. I said that I was really afraid and that it must hurt and if he please do it slowly, but he already grabbed one hose and pulled it out. It made a really disgusting noise and it wasn't a nice feeling either, but ii didn't hurt that much. Then he also pulled out the second one. 

In the afternoon I could finally leave. No waiting for bad labor results, no crying, no collapsing. Just going home in peace. :) 

At home I had the best evening of my live! It sounds stupid and I didn't believe it myself before I experienced it on my own: You feel like the happiest person in the world! It's not easy to describe this feeling. The only thing I can say is, that I came home and finally could take a shower after that long time! It felt amazing to feel the warm water running down your body and to feel clean again! No more smelling that disgusting germicide! When I was finished I went downstairs and my mum had made me my favorite tea. It tasted and smelled delicious! I went to bed quite early, because I was still very tired and exhausted and I had the best sleep ever! 

So, what I want to tell you is, that every little thing, even if it's just a cup of tea or taking a shower or sitting on your couch: You suddenly appreciate it more and feel grateful and it's just amazing! 

The next day we had to go to the doctor again to remove the big white patch on my neck. Sadly it wasn't a scar of two cm anymore.... Now it was 10...10cm with a dot on the left and right end of it, where the hoses were. I literally looked like Frankenstein's monster! It looked really scary. 

The next few weeks I still felt amazing! I didn't want this feeling to go away, so I tried to keep it up as long as possible. This feeling is gone now but sometimes I can build it up again.  

But my "journey" did not come to an end at that point. Even though my whole thyroid, the tumor, nearly all of my front neck tissue and nine lymph nodes were removed: I still had cancer. That's why a therapy was coming up....

P.S.: I totally forgot to tell you that the tumor was the size of a table tennis ball. Which was strange for me because my favorite sport is table tennis. I lost 2cm of circumference on my neck. They've measured it every two and a half hours. It was so annoying because I couldn't sleep properly because I had to lift my head so that the nurse could measure it. It hurt! But it was very important. If my neck would have swollen, I could have suffocated.

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