Posted 5/20/2022 3:37 PM (GMT 0)
I know some of the post are old but they still apply to thyroid and surgery so I am telling my story as well.
Several years ago during a routine check up and blood work, my PCP told me that I had an elevated PTH and that it needed to be monitored. Several test were ordered. Urine 24hr test, PTH test, calcium test, bone density test and some other test I can't remember. After the results, it was told to me that my PTH level was 147 but that the other test were normal so they would take a Wait and See approach to the elevated level. That was six years ago and since that time to make a long story short...I have had several endo doctors who monitored the levels over the last 6 years and continued the testing and monitoring with PTH levels going from 147 to 200 to 245 to 289 to 276 and then the whopper 311 and then 400.
311 PTH was March 2020 where a biopsy was done on the thyroid nodules discovered after doctor said during a swallow test thyroid was swollen. After all that testing and x rays and more testing and x rays Covid broke out and that was the end of that. The hospital in Chicago would not even let me come in for anything and told me to stay away but did do video visits to monitor the issue based on what I told them about coughing, swallowing difficulties, bone pain, osteopenia issues and all of that. I suffered so bad for the last two years during this plague of a pandemic, but at the beginning of the year, I braved the elements and returned to the hospital for a complete check of my blood, my thyroid, my bones, my calcium levels, my PTH levels and everything that was involved.
I could not avoid the surgery any longer and set it up for Feb-1-22.
The doctors made sure to keep giving me Covid test before surgery and said this was something they did for each and every patient. I guess they had to make sure that the person getting surgery did not have Covid and honestly they did not care if you had been vaccinated, had not been vaccinated, had boosters or not. Everybody was given several Covid test before surgery. I thought this was great and had actually gotten real comfortable with the surgery coming up as I was suffering so bad and it was unbearable. I sometimes could not even stand up for a long period of time and I was always exhausted and tired.
The hospital in Chicago sent a service car to pick me up the day of the surgery. They did not want me to drive myself. Everything was going smoothly until check in when they asked me to remove my N95 mask and gave me one of those flimsy medical mask to put on. I was so angry seeing as how everybody in the hospital had on N95 mask but they took mine and gave me a flimsy mask. Hmmmmm
Anyway after that, several doctors involved in the surgery came and went and finally I was taken in for surgery and according to my family who kept calling and the doctors, everything went fine.
During recovery, I was moved to a brand new wing in the Chicago hospital and I had a private room where more doctors kept checking vitals and looked after me but during the night after surgery a patient was admitted and coughed all night and I mean exactly that.
The next day I was discharged and a service car again came to take me home and during a snow storm in Chicago....how cool was that?
I got home and my family started taking care of me and can you believe it but after everyone in my bubble who I interacted with and ONLY with them....having done all the proper things and followed a strict protocol and nobody got the plague Covid virus for two years.......on Feb 5....5 days after the surgery.....everybody in the house got Covid. I could not believe it. We never got Covid for two years but as soon as I went to an actual hospital for surgery....returned home.....never went anywhere except my bubble of family and they never went anywhere except on the balcony of the house.......I gave everybody Covid. Imagine that.
I have a scar, I healed up, my voice returned which was something I was worried about but my calcium level was 9 which was good.....PTH went down to 45 which was good but went back up to 175. Calcium stayed at 9 so doctors were not worried. That's my story.