I wanted to post on what happened with my surgery yesterday. I am at home resting comfortably and have not taken any pain meds since last night. This post also has relevance to an ongoing issue in this thread which is T3 and T4 synthetic hormone levels.
Although the game plan going into surgery was a partial or hemithyroidectomy, we unfortunately had to go to plan B. When they opened me up they examined an adjacent lymph node to my thyroid which had showed as "low suspicion" on ultrasound. They cut 6 mm, examined in lab and found the thyroid cancer in it. The lymph node was removed. This also led to the entire thyroid, (left lobe, right lobe and isthmus) also being removed. The total time of the surgery was 4 hours and 15 minutes. As a result of the finding of a spread (albeit a minimal one) of the thyroid cancer, I will be having radioactive isotope therapy in 6 weeks which my surgeon is very confident will irradiate remaining cancer (if any). He said my survival rate is not much different than if they had just taken out the 1.1 cm tumor in the thyroid itself. This treatment will consist of taking me off synthroid for a week, starving my body on an iodine free diet, and then administering radioactive iodine. Any remaining thyroid cancer cells will be starved of iodine, will suck up the radiation and be killed (or so we hope).
After surgery, I felt very minimal pain which was completely extinguished with dilaudid. No nausea at all. Nothing other than feeling sedated and relaxed. I had 2 percocets at bedtime last night and nothing since, so my mind is clear as I write this. They woke me up 3 times last night to check my calcium by pricking me in the hand and taking blood to check my calcium levels. They all came back good.
I was discharged this morning from the hospital. I was very surprised by the lack of pain and I feel none at all right now. I have 2 drains in my neck and a big dressing which my surgeon will remove tomorrow. When they changed the dressings this morning they said my neck looked good.
I have been started on a synthetic thyroid hormone called Synthroid, effective immediately, because I have nothing in my body producing producing thyroid hormone and it's necessary to regulate one's metabolism. My dosage is 137 mcg which my ace endocrinologist told me is based on my body weight and not my blood TSH labs which, despite my cancer, were completely normal. I will have to take synthroid for the rest of my life. Interestingly ace endocrinologist overruled the hospital which had given me a scrip for 25 mcg of T3 which my endocrinologist told me is a 7-8 year old protocol that has been abandoned in modern endocrinology.
My restrictions right now are no driving for 3 days (they don't want me moving my neck left and right), no lifting, and I have to keep my head elevated tonight due to the drains. So will probably take pain meds tonight just to get to sleep on 3 pillows which surely will not be easy when I have trouble sleeping on one.
My Dad is in town and driving me to the pharmacy and doctor's appointments, of which I have two tomorrow and then one next week.
I feel very comfortable, and I feel I am getting tremendous medical care by both surgeon and endocrinologist who work together as a team even though they are In different practice groups in the same town. I am going to have to take synthroid the rest of my life and hopefully the dosage will be correct to maintain my energy levels but other than that my chance for a complete recovery is very high and according to My surgeon is close to the 98% national average.
Let me know if you have any questions and thank you all for your support.
