Surgery

The day after meeting with the surgeon at Rush I called and scheduled my surgery. I went into surgery on that Thursday night (7pm because the OR was backed up) and had a total thyroidectomy. The docotor was confident that he removed all the tissue and the final pathology report came back with a 0.5 mm section of papillary carcinoma (very small). I was told that I did not need to worry about anything and that I should start up on my hormone replacement right away.

For anyone that may be going through this, do not worry about the surgery. I was out of the hospital 12 hours after later and the pain was not bad. It just felt like a sore neck. And I did consistently feel that I didn't want to turn my neck too far to one side or the other in fear that i might rip open the stitches. But I never did. The worst part of surgery for me was feeling sick when I woke up from the anesthesia. But by morning I was feeling fine.

Doctors

I went into Doctor #1's office and first had to wait 45 minutes to even see him. But he was the best in the area so I wanted to go to him. After I finally got into the exam room and he came in we talked about my options. It was very important for me to do my research before I had even meet with anyone because I do not like being in the dark.

We talked about the options but I had already made up my mind and I wanted surgery. I opted for a total thyroidectomy and dissection of my right anterior cervical lymph node because it was also enlarged. After talking to the surgeon for 15 or so minutes we agree on the surgery and he sent me to go schedule it. The nurse walked me over and asked me to wait again. When she came back she told me that the next availability for surgery was 6 weeks out. I reluctantly took the opening even though I thought I needed it done sooner.

This really bothered me the next day so I called back and wanted to talk to my surgeon about moving the surgery up. I was told that I needed to make another appointment and come in to talk to him. So I did just that and took the next available which was two weeks later. The more I thought about waiting the more I was getting anxious.

I started talking to a friend who is also a doctor and he referred me to Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. I called and got an appointment right away. I went and meet with another surgeon for a second opinion on the following Monday. He also agreed on the total thyroidectomy and said he would be happy to do the surgery for me. I talked to his nurse who showed me his surgery schedule and told me she could but me down if I wanted her to. I was unsure of what I wanted right then so I told her I would call back in the next few day.

Choking

By the middle of June 2008 I had started to get this choking feeling. It felt like I was wearing a turtle neck that was too tight. And I would have this feeling all day long when I had nothing touching my neck. I finally went to the hospital where I had the ultrasound done and picked up a copy of the images. When I popped the disc in my computer I was shocked to see that no news did NOT mean good news.

There were three main areas of concern in my thyroid gland. There was one cystic mass on the right lobe, one smaller tumor on the right lobe, and one large tumor on the left lobe. I am not a doctor and I do not read ultrasounds but I did know that the characteristics of the masses were abnormal for benign tumors. It did not look good.

So I called and made and appointment with a Surgical ENT.