Post op day 3: hemithyroidectomy

I'm feeling pretty useless. I get up and pretty much do nothing for a couple of hours--perhaps putter about online or tag along to the grocery store, and that completely wipes me out. Emotionally, I'm on a rollercoaster, and I have waves of sadness and crying jags for no reason. I tell myself that its just hormonal changes after surgery, but that's not much of a comfort. I can't focus on anything for more than a few seconds and it feels like I'm operating my brain via long distance remote control. I want to read, but simply can't concentrate to follow the storyline in any meaningful manner, plus I fall asleep at the drop of a hat. I rock at hotflashes though, so I can say I'm good for something!

Physically, the swelling has gone down a bit so that I'm no longer hoarse, but its still tight, stiff and sore, and the area all around my incision is red and rashy looking. Last night I started putting a thin layer of hydrocortisone cream on the red area, being careful to stay away from the actual incision, and I'm much less itchy today. The wound itself is still weeping a fair amount of serous fluid and is all crusty when I wake, so I gently rinse it with sterile saline and then pat the crusties away before applying the bacitracin. The rest of my body is less sore finally, so turning in bed is easier despite my head still weighing about two tons. Baby steps of improvement, but I'll take them. My neck is numb all long the platysimus muscle, better known as the shaving muscle to you men. I'm guessing the nerve was cut during surgery, though it functions fine. That's a minor inconvenience though, and is more an interesting observation than a complaint. I uploaded a mess of pictures into a public folder on Facebook, so if you want to see the recovery process including a gratuitous shot of my actual thyroid, go look me up over there. My profile name is Katlinel Qamar Al-Shefa'a, which is a combination of my dance name and real name. The profile itself is friend only but the surgery fun photo album is open to everyone.