"...And the winner is..........."

i finally got to see my surgeon yesterday. he said that  he removed a very large tumor ( cancer) from my right side,all the lymph nodes around it, and surprise, i had ANOTHER tumor ( cancer) on the other side! the really good news is that  MY NECK LYMPH NODES ARE NEGATIVE FOR CANCER!! he said there is a good chance that he got it all. i have to see my endocrinologist on june 21st, and she will review the pathology report at length, and decide if i will need the radioactive iodine treatment or not.

the radioactive iodine treatment is a tricky decision. on the one hand, it will "seek out" any rogue thyroid cancer cells that somehow got away and are looking for a new place to set up shop. this is the good part. the bad part, besides having to go off your thyroid medicine for several days, and basically becoming a zombie, is that there is a fairly significant percentage of people who will develop some kind of cancer later on because of the treatment.my husband is leaning towards the side of not doing this treatment, but i am going to listen to my doctor and see what her opinion is. after all, she saved my life- seriously. if i had not gone back to her and had she not done the tests, well, you know.

my surgeon said that he could not extend my leave past two weeks. can you believe having major surgery, and then going back after two weeks? i called my district manager and she is going to see if somehow i can get another week or two off. i really need them. my neck is still swollen and painful. i really crash in the afternoon, i guess they still have some more work to do on my thyroid dose (!) no one has done blood work on that as yet. i have to get my calcium level drawn every 3-4 days or so. the surgeon is doing a sort of "parathyroid challenge" test. he reduced my calcium from 12,000mg per day to a mere 3,000mg and i have to have blood work done on friday. he said that was the only way to tell if they had reattached. evidently they will be doing this a lot ( i saw the form for this- it had a LOT  of lines on it) until they feel that things are o.k.

i was proud of myself yesterday. i made it all the way back to the car before i started crying. my husband,said " are you going to cry all the way home?" and i said no. just half of the way home!!