The Surgery

Okay, surgery is scheduled for 9:30am on 1 July, a Wednesday. The surgeon, Dr. Agee, is the same guy who took out both my and Joe's gallbladders, and is very familiar with this surgery. The appointment with him last over an hour, and he went way into graphic depth about the surgery, so we have a very vivid idea of what's going to happen. I will spare all of you that picture! Needless to say, I will be out of work for at least two weeks, and in the hospital for up to four days right after the surgery.

Good news is, he said that even though the initial pathology report stated follicular cancer, and suspicion of papillary carcinoma, that doesn't mean I have necessarily have cancer. Apparently the FNA (fine needle aspiration) biopsy can often have false positives. He actually said it's close to 80% chance of being a false positive. Unfortunately, the only way to prove it one way or another is to biopsy the actual tissue. And since I have nodules and suspicions on both sides of the thyroid, then it just makes sense to remove the entire gland and test it all at once. Otherwise, I would have had to go through two surgeries. If I am in that 80%, then I don't have cancer, and they put me on Synthroid for the rest of my life and I'm good to go. If, however, I do have C, then it's a long, drawn-out, exhausting process to find any possible remaining tissue that's infected, and radiating them with iodine. I won't go into that horrible process unless we have to.

So that's it. Now I wait a couple of weeks, and hope I'm in the majority. Will post more as we know it. Take care everyone!