During the past few days I have been posting about my illness, Hyperparathyroidism. Not many people know about it and it often goes undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. You can read my previous posts, “What Is Wrong With Me?” and “Hyperparathyroidism – What is it?” by clicking on the links. Once I had a diagnosis it was obvious that I needed to have surgery. I was sent to Pittsburgh to an Endocrine Surgeon. She did tests and scheduled my surgery for March 19, 2012 at 7:15 AM.

I had to be at the hospital at 5:00 AM. We traveled to Pittsburgh the evening before and stayed at the UPMC Family House. I arrived at 5 AM and it seemed like hurry up and wait. I was the first into the pre-op holding room and it seemed to take forever for someone to come and  talk to me about my anesthesia, etc. My surgeon came in to ask if I had any questions or concerns before the surgery which I thought was nice.

Before long, I was being wheeled into the OR. They intubate you and start a second line in your ankle so that they can draw blood and test your calcium and PTH (Parathyroid hormone) levels during surgery.

This is a picture of an actual parathyroidectomy in progress. They slide the vocal cords over and slide the thyroid and they look at the Parathyroids. They find the bad gland and remove it. Then do blood work, if after 10 minutes the calcium level does not drop, they look for additional glands that might be affected.

They do a variety of scans and X-rays prior to the surgery to try and locate the gland that is causing the problems.

In my case, the gland causing the problem was not showing up on any of the scans. During the surgery they examined three of the glands that appeared fine and then had to make a second cut to do further exploring of my neck to find the missing gland. It was hidden under my collar bone. The gland was the size of the end of your finger. 400 times the size of a piece of rice. Once it was removed my calcium and PTH levels dropped immediately.

I am very thankful that I had this surgery done in 2012 and not back five or ten years ago. The surgery is much less complicated now. Five or ten years ago I would have had a 7 – 10 inch scar on my neck from under one ear to the other. The wound would have been held together to heal with staples which would have left a railroad track like scar across my neck. See the pictures below.

Thanks to modern medical science and the many advancements in technology, my incisions are only about 1.5 inches each and the wound is held together with dissolvable thread that hopefully will only leave a small scar. Below are pictures of my neck the evening of my surgery.

There are several possible complications from this surgery. You could have temporary or permanent voice change or loss. If they make a mistake and touch the wrong nerve you could lose the ability to breath without a tracheotomy. There is the chance of additional trauma to the neck. I was fortunate and had no problems. My voice was a little hoarse for a few days, more from the tube down my throat than anything else. The neck pain was/is minimal. My biggest problems were post anesthesia issues and calcium level fluctuations.

Tomorrow, I will discuss my recovery, what YOU need to know about hyperparathyroidism, and provide a post op video discussing my surgery.

Did you know about hyperparathyroidism before reading my posts?