Pathology

I had an appointment with my surgeon today, she had the pathology report back. Turns out the tumor was cancerous, that is, on the tumor were tumors. Make sense? The larger tumor was a follicular adenoma, the tumors on it are called papillary tumors, they are the ones which are cancerous.

So I have to have more surgery to remove the other side of my thyroid gland which will then be sent to a pathologist to determine presence of the papillary tumors or not.  Then likely radioactive iodine therapy to kill remaining thyroid cells and reduce the likelihood of any metastasizing of the cancers to lymph nodes.

It's unnerving, I am debating how and when to tell the girls, cause you know they do not need anything else to traumatize them.

The surgery on my neck has to wait until this previous surgery has rested for three months, that means I don't go in to have the rest of my thyroid removed until June.  The risks are: damage to vocal cord nerves, damage to parathyroid glands, hemorrhaging, or infection. 
Not too bad.

There is also talk of biopsying my lymph nodes to see if it has metastasized to them.
The likelihood is that it has not, given the small size of the foci of cancer. (there are 6 on the part which was removed, all between 1 and 3 millimeters)
I had all of an hour to process this prior to a meeting with Leishabeth's teacher and occupational therapist.
 I'm finding it difficult to process and participate at the same time.  You know, be IN life, in family etc while trying to wrap my head around this news.