Hi Everybody,
I'm a newbie here. I was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer that had spread to 5 regional lymph nodes back in Nov 2024. When I was diagnosed, they initially thought it was worse than it turned out to be because a ton of lymph nodes were lit up on pet scan (they took nearly 20 lymph nodes that they *thought* were cancer, and only one of them turned out to be cancer--the rest were just inflamed). They did a full thyroidectomy and neck dissection. I had a 6 month ultrasound check-up with the surgeon who said everything looked great.
Yesterday, I had my follow-up with my endocrinologist who said he was concerned because a post-surgical pet showed another lymph node lit up near the same area. He did a biopsy and I'm waiting for the results.
He's planning on doing RAI either way. He said if it's malignant, first he'll treat it with the RAI (and yes, I'll be posting questions about that), then do a pet to see if it's ok. If not, then another surgery. Sigh.
Needless to say, it's VERY stressful. First, why wouldn't the surgeon--who I saw a few months ago--mention this? I'm hoping against hope that it turns out to be an inflammation. He said it takes roughly a week to get the biopsy results. Yesterday, I got something in my chart that detailed what he did during the biopsy and *his* post biopsy diagnosis, which was thyroid cancer.
Has any of you been through this--where it turned out a lymph node that wasn't taken out and is cancer? And what course of treatment did you do?
Thanks for any/all responses. :-)
Hi lattedrinker4000de5f66 and a very warm welcome to the online community which I hope you'll find is both an informative and supportive place to be.
I’m Anne, one of the Community Champions here on the Online Community and, although I'm not a member of this group, I noticed that your post hadn't had any replies yet. Responding to you will 'bump' it back to the top of the discussion list again.
While you're waiting for replies, it would be great if you could put something about your diagnosis and proposed treatment into your profile as it really helps others when replying to you and also when looking for someone on a similar pathway. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. To do this click on your username and then select 'Profile'. You can amend it at any time and if you're not sure what to write you can take a look at mine by clicking on my username.
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
