thyroid surgery
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thyroid surgery
| Sun, 12-05-2004 - 7:37pm |
I am having a partial thyroidectomy on the 14 of Dec. I found a nodule months back and went to a docter who did a thyroid scan and then told me it was nott on my thyroid and not to worry. He said come back if it gets biggerr. Well it did get alittle biggerr and then I had symptoms like discomfort swallowing and some mild pain in the thyroid area and I also was getting a radiating pain up into my ears. I had discussed these symptoms with him and he blew me off back then. I decided to go to another docter in the city at a top hospital and it was indeed a nodule on my thyroid. I need surgery to take it out because the fine needle biopsy came back a neoplasm which means it could be benign or could be cancer so I'm alittle scared . I know this is treatable and everyone I speak with tells me that if it is cancer its the most treatable kind. Most of the time they just take out thyroid and that is the end of the cancer. I hope! then it will be being on medicine the rest of my life. I am trying to be positive but i'm alittle down. Anyone who went for a partial and needed to go back for a total?
Meaning they found cancer. What was the treatment afterwards?
Thanks
Kathy
Meaning they found cancer. What was the treatment afterwards?
Thanks
Kathy

Hi Kathy,
I'm glad you got a second opinion.
Kathy,
I had two thyroid surgeries last month. I had a 6cm tumor in my right thyroid lobe. A needle biopsy came back negative, but my new doctor (much better than my first doctor) wanted to take my right lobe out because the tumor was growing. I had the right lobe removed on November 5th. During the surgery they did a freeze section biopsy, and there was a 95% chance that there was no cancer. The final biopsy showed a 1.5 cm growth of follicular cancer. I had the rest of my thyroid removed on November 24th along with some lymph nodes for testing. The left side of my thyroid and the nodes were all negative for cancer. Next I'm going to have Radioactive Iodine sometime in late January, which I'm really not looking forward to. Every time I get some good news, the doctors come back with a "but...."
As far as the surgery goes, I didn't think it was bad at all. I had abdominal laproscopic surgery last year and that was much worse in terms of pain and recovery. The muscles in the back of my neck were really sore after the first thyroid surgery, but I had a very enlarged thyroid because of the tumor. I have had some after-effects from the anesthesia (sore hands), but that is really different for each person. I only used a couple of pain pills after the second surgery, and my neck didn't hurt at all 1 week after the surgery.
Good luck - I hope everything goes well for you and you get a big fat negative for the cancer biopsy!
Steph