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Thyroidectomy

I recently detected a bump on my neck and was refererred to an endo.  He sent me for a FNA which was guided by an ultrasound.  It turns out there is one nodule, about 1.5cm.  The results of the FNA came back "suscpicious of papillary thyroid carcinoma."  My Doctor says to have the entire thyroid removed.  When I asked why not just the side with the nodule, he said the pathologists are right 95% of the time.  I was so stunned by this that I did no think to ask, but does this mean that there's a 95% chance that it is papillary cancer?
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793305 tn?1493925518
I am having my thyroidectomy on Wednesday.  I have a nodule on both sides, one side showing signs of cancer.  My surgeon advised that if we left the one side, there is a 50% chance that the cancer will just go to the other side and we would have to take it anyway.  I have a lady that works with me and her sister just had one side removed and then later they attempted to "kill" the other half and it didn't work, so they went ahead and removed the second half.  She was relieved to hear that I was having the whole thing taken out.  Less traumatic in the long run.  My regular dr also recommended that they take the whole thing.  So out it goes.  As far as the meds go, I am in my 40's and I am on blood pressure meds and have taken birth control pill for many years.  I don't mind the taking the medicine everyday.  I figure that I'll probably be taking some sort of vitamins for the rest of my life.....
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Avatar universal
Hi, sorry I didn't reply sooner didn't see the post.  The surgeon removed six lymph nodes and two had cancer.  Both had the papillary cancer with the tall cell variant.  This is the very aggressive type of rare thyroid cancer.  I will have blood work done four weeks after the surgery to test the thyroglobin which is a good indicator of a cancer reoccurance. If that is positive then back to the body scans and ultra sounds.
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Avatar universal
I think that's why my endo wants to remove the whole thyroid-so I don't have to go through another surgery later on. I appreciate that he's being so aggressive about this, but at the same time I'm really concerned about being on thyroid replacement for the rest of my life. I'm only 25 and otherwise my health is fine.  I think I'm just having a hard time processing everything.  I'm meeting with my surgeon on Friday and I guess I'll just wait until then to find out all I can.

What is being done to treat the cancer that has spread to your  lymph nodes and how have you recovered from your most recent surgery?
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What my surgeon did during the operation was to remove half of the thyroid with the nodule and sent it to pathology and waited for the results.  My nodule came back positive for papillary cancer with a tall cell variant and he removed the other side because most often down the road the other side of the thyroid will develop cancer.  My surgeon said it is more difficult to cut through scar tissue the second time.   My first surgery was 10 months ago.  I just had my second surgery a few weeka ago. The cancer had spread to the lymph nodes. Best wishes and good luck
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Avatar universal
898
The odds of being papillary cancer are about 80%; however if we are talking about follicular variant of papillary cancer the odds are less then 50%
Best of luck.
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