Surgery

I had surgery on Tuesday, September 20, 2011.  My entire thyroid was removed.  No cancer was found in the surrounding lymph nodes during surgery.  I spent the night in the hospital.  Every two hours someone came into my room to give me pain medication (morphine through IV), or to check my vital signs, or to check my respiration, or to take blood (for calcium level test).  I didn't get much sleep!  The doctor came to check on me around 1:00pm.  He was pleased with the amount of fluid that had drained from the surgery and that my calcium levels were pretty stable.  I was discharged shortly thereafter. 

My incision is being held closed with steri-strips.  This photo was taken six days after surgery:

After the steri-strips were taken off to be changed.

Most of my pain has been in swallowing, especially food.  I found that soft foods like jello, yogurt, smoothies, and milkshakes were the easiest things to eat the first two to three days.  I especially like milkshakes because the coldness feels good on my throat.  It has taken several days to get my appetite back to where it should be.  It also took several days to get my appetite back to normal.  I could eat, but just not large amounts of food.

The front of my neck feels heavy.  I have to remind myself to keep my head straight up and not hunch over.  The nurse told me that trying to protect the incision will cause more pain than the surgery itself!

I was able to stop taking the pain pills the fourth day following surgery. 

The diagnosis:

I went to my doctor in July 2011 for my annual exam.  She felt my thyroid and said that it felt enlarged.  She asked me if I had a family history of thyroid problems.  I told her that my sister, who is 32 years old, was diagnosed two years ago with thyroid cancer.  I am 45 years old. 

She sent me for an ultrasound to find out why it was enlarged.  The ultrasound found 4 nodules in my thyroid.  Thyroid nodules are pretty common, and less than 10% of the time they are cancer. 

Since I had the family history, she thought that I should then have a fine needle aspiration on the 2 largest nodules.

The procedure was done in the ultrasound room, by a radiologist.  I was injected with lidocaine on both sides of my thyroid first.  Then he used 4 needles to obtain a sample on the left side, and 3 needles for the right side.  The procedure wasn't very painful.

This is what my neck looked like after the procedure:

It hurt to swallow some foods and to laugh for a couple of days.

My doctor's office called me to come in as soon as they had the results. The first nodule tested, which is solid, is just a goiter.  The second nodule, which is cystic, is thyroid papillary carcinoma.

My doctor had already set up an appointment with an Ear/Nose/Throat physician to discuss my options.

He said that if the cancer hadn't spread to the lymph nodes, he could just remove the one side.  Or, I could have him remove the entire thyroid.  He said, "If it was my wife, I would have the entire gland removed."

It's been an emotional roller coaster since I've had the diagnosis.  My surgery was scheduled for 6 weeks after my diagnosis.  I really didn't want to wait that long, but his thyroid surgery schedule was booked up until then.