Bye Bye Thyroid: One Year Later

I know, I know. You patiently wait for a blog post (or at least my dad does. Hi Dad!), and I finally post something and it's not even about an awesome oversea adventure. I will write one about my first year of grad school in the next week, but today we detour into non-adventure land. Well...not fun adventure land.

One year ago today, I got my thyroid removed.

It was my first major surgery, my first night in the hospital, and my first removal of an organ. So the anniversary is worth noting. Also, when I knew I was having surgery I wanted to see what the scars were like, and all I came across were horrible, horrible pictures. Like this poor woman:

Googling your upcoming surgery is like going to
WebMD for medical advice. It will be horrible.
And you've probably got cancer.

So, I figure I'd post mine for friends and family that might be interested, as well as poor scared people who might stumble upon these and be reassured that not all the scars are that big.

Plus, it's my blog and I do what I want. ;)

Roll the picture montage! (Also, this is officially the most selfies I've ever taken in my life.)

That's a face that says, "I'm scared shitless about surgery tomorrow. Let's take last pictures before I look like I had a botched decapitation." 

And that's a face that says, "Getting a tumor peeled off your trachea is not my idea of a good time."
Having friends come over and play Pandemic with you in the hospital, on the other hand, is a good time.

I'm still drugged enough I can muster a semi-smile for this picture before I go sleep another 18 hours.

The "Jesus, what the hell is wrong with your neck?!?" Stage. This would be why I wasn't allowed to lay back beyond a 45° angle for 2 weeks. That large lump o' swelling actually strangled me when I laid down. Fun times, fun times!

The "Not being able to leave my apartment when I don't have cable is lame" Stage. Also, some random bleeding.

Was still having dizziness problems, but otherwise out and about and back at work. Still got some funny stares.

Look at that cheeky grin! After patiently waiting for the bandage to decide to fall off like a good Anica, I was happy to see my scar. Looks like the more expensive surgeon was worth it. ;)

Swelling's almost gone (kinda), and the scar is looking good. Why do I look so miserable then? This is two weeks without any thyroid pills and one week into my low-iodine diet...aka Hell. 

Me today! Notice the slight change in wardrobe between Vegas June and Sweden June. :)
I usually think my scar is pretty obvious, but looking at the pictures, I think you can barely tell it's even there.

So, there you have it.

One thing I noticed: I've aged a LOT in the last year. I thought I had, but actually sitting here and looking through the pictures (including the less complimentary ones you aren't seeing)...it's kind of depressing. I shouldn't be surprised - there was the cancer thing, with surgery and radiation, and then the moving to a foreign country just two weeks after, starting grad school, and the whole not having a normal thyroid level until just two months ago. Nothing stressful really that would age a person. ;)

At least I've always looked really young for my age, so I think I'm still under the 34 I'm supposed to be. My advice? Don't get cancer. It's just all sorts of a pain in the ass.

Alright, next post will include pictures of foreign lands, I promise. :)

It’s an Anica-thing

In my six months in Sweden, I’ve noticed there’s two things I say rather frequently here, whether I’m talking to Swedes or other international students:

     1. “Well, it depends on the state…” when replying to some question about how something works in the US  

       (Most recent usage: Talking about age of consent)

     2. “That’s not an American thing, it’s an Anica-thing” when explaining something I do that is weird

       (Most recent usage: Me cooking bacon in water, which totally blew my corridor-mate’s mind)

Today we had an unexpected free day off from school – no lectures, no pressing projects or papers to write – just a day I could do whatever. As much as I am a nerd and love school, I do miss being able to just enjoy evenings and weekends without having to do any kind of work. (Or if I couldn’t, at least being paid, typically 1.5 times more, to have to do so. Much better than this homework racket.)

So what did I do, as a college student with a surprise day of freedom? I spent the entire day in the kitchen cooking things from scratch, of course! (It’s not really an American thing, it’s just an Anica-thing.) ;)

Does this have anything to do with Sweden? Nope, outside of that’s my location at the moment. I just love to cook and this seemed a good excuse to sneak in a picture of the beautiful lasagna I made I figured I’d share some pictures of just a normal day off here, lest you think I’m just sitting in Sweden all sad and depressed after my last post. 

Not the best pictures, since I wasn't planing on doing this and took them with my phone, but I'm just a food porn amateur. ;)

---------

I actually started off cooking a bit on Monday, which was a day I needed to work on a presentation and read some papers, but didn't have any scheduled at school time, so I was free to cook too.

I made some marinara sauce, the recipe of which is one of the only good things from being on that low-iodine diet hell over the summer. It's just tomatoes, onions, garlic, fresh basil, salt, pepper, thyme, and oregano, pureed as much as humanly possible and simmered for 2+ hours to make it less itchy. (Mild tomato allergy - less cooked and chunks gives me a rash.)

The internet tells me that the air added in the pureeing
is why my sauce is always orange instead of red.
At least you can tell it's homemade then, right?

That batch gave me eleven 1½ cup servings, which is the perfect to make dinner and have leftovers for lunch.

Today though, I started off making some breakfast burritos. This is my third time making these, and they are amazing. I do a big batch and freeze them, and then have a delicious and nutritious breakfast that microwaves in 3 minutes. 

Oven roasted potatoes, eggs, bacon pieces, onion,
bell pepper, and a little cheese = deliciousness

As I've never been much of a morning person to begin with, and now I have to take my thyroid pill on an empty stomach and wait an hour to eat, breakfast was becoming a major problem before this. 97% of the time I end up eating one while walking to the bus stop.

My beauts ready for the freezer. Freeze on a cookie sheet first,
then when frozen you can dump in a giant ziploc without having
to worry that they'll freeze together.

After those went in the freezer, I also made some Italian sausage (not pictured), then took a lunch break and made a bacon cheeseburger with some of the bacon left over from the burritos. :)

Then the pièce de résistance: lasagna.

This was my first time making a real lasagna, and it is quite an undertaking, but the goal was to be able to have a bunch in the freezer for those I'm-too-tired/lazy-to-cook days. (I walk past a kebob place, McDonald's, and grocery store on my way home from the bus stop, and honestly most of the time I cave is because it's been a long day and I don't have anything easy to eat at home.) 

They do have TV dinners and frozen pizza here, but that's not much healthier. Besides, I had a piece of lasagna when I first moved here, and they make it very wrong (which one of the Swedes I live with concurred as he saw I was making it right, so there). Instead of ricotta they use a béchamel sauce. No.

Ready for the oven. Also, Swedish lasagna noodles don't have ridges.
It makes it easier to layer in the pan, but I kind of miss the
festiveness of the wavy sides.

I went all out for my first foray into lasagna: homemade marinara sauce with homemade Italian sausage, spinach, ricotta, parmesan, fresh basil, and fresh mozzarella I grated myself. And yes, I enjoyed myself immensely, especially when it came out of the oven...

Isn't she pretty?!?

Don't worry, not quitting my day job to become a food stylist.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Next time more sauce, and I'll mix the spinach in with the ricotta instead of a separate layer like the recipe called for. It should also let me get more spinach in there without really affecting the taste. It's still pretty good though, and earned the approval of the meat-eating population of my corridor.

After dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow, I've got 13 little healthy instant meals in my freezer. Funny thing is this sounds like a diet tips blog post - Just prep ahead and easily eat easy all week! - but it did take up pretty much the whole day and would not interest most people. Me, on the other hand? I had a ball. 

In case you don't believe that spending 8 hours in
a kitchen makes me happy. That's a proud,
dorky lasagna mama right there.

I may have missed my calling at being a housewife on a homestead.

Hmm.

The day ended with a special surprise from the grocery store that completed the evening. 

When I was a kid, there was this commercial for this fancy ice cream thing that I longed to try, but we never did. (It was probably too expensive.) For years, I've dreamed of this dessert: 

LOOK WHAT SWEDEN HAS.

I didn't have the Fancy Feast glass goblets to eat it out of, but otherwise it did not disappoint. Kind of like a lasagna made with ice cream and thin chocolate layers. It's like part of my childhood is now complete. 

So there you have it, my random day off, from your weirdo friend. (See, life in a foreign land isn't all walking on cobblestone streets past 1,000 year old buildings and stuff. Sometimes you stay inside, after all.) 

:)

Hello?

What have we here? Six years, and I'm finally posting again!

I don't think anyone checks this but my dad (Hi Daddy-o!), but since I will be moving to Sweden, and this seems to be the place where I post of my international adventures, I thought I'd dust it off.

This time around I make no promises to post regularly, since we know that doesn't happen no matter what I say. (Maybe it'll be better with the pressure off?) I will try to write less and put more pictures, since I am a verbose individual but no one really wants to read as much ramblings as I have. I'll also try not to be a perfectionist on it, as going through several drafts and edits for a blog not only seems silly, but was a main contributor to not posting regularly.

So, in the interests of keeping it short, I'm going to briefly mention things that I'll be probably posting about soon, with more detailed posts to follow at some point.

As mentioned above, I'm moving to Sweden, on August 18th to be exact. I'll be earning my Master of Science in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science at Lund University. 'Cause why not? ;)

Before that happens, I'll have a nice, shorter than I was hoping for, two day whirlwind in Iceland. I hear they have a museum filled with nothing but penis specimens from every mammal in Iceland. (Worry not, there will be pictures.)

And before I can really think about all that, before the packing and whatnot, I've got to get this thyroid cancer thing wrapped up. Surgery was good and is done, next is the radioactive iodine treatment, and then I should be all clear.

That's what you're going to hear about first, because it seems blog worthy. (Or maybe I just need to journal.)

You can always come back in a month for the fun international travel pictures. :)