Unexpected discovery in surgery, please help.

Sorry can’t give you any help or advice, but am thinking of you. I think the waiting is the worst part!

Hey there Cat,

Welcome to the forum, though I'm sorry you have to find yourself here.

What you've had is called a diagnostic hemithyroidectomy. It's what they do sometimes when they get a T3 result on the FNA. However, this does mean that when they're going in, they don't know what they're going in to see. So everything and anything they find is technically unexpected. They should have also explained that if they found anything, then there would be the possibility that they'd have to operate again to remove the other half and/or some lymph nodes. So the plan hasn't changed because it was an investigative operation and what they found would determine any next steps that needed to be taken.

Whatever the tissues are that they've found have been removed and are off to the lab to be tested, so they're in the best place for you. It'll take a few weeks, probably, but then the results will come back and let you know what's going on in there. They'll have a good look at the lump to see what it is, and the good news is that 90% of thyroid lumps come back as benign. For whatever reason, thyroids just like to throw up lumps, especially when women are extra hormonal (puberty, pregnancy, menopause, etc).

As your Dr said, even if it comes back as cancer, and even if it's spread to the lymph nodes - this generally doesn't change the prognosis at all. It's still treated exactly the same as if it had been contained within the lump, and usually everyone is completely fine.

Hope that helps,

Lass

xx

Thank you. You don’t understand how much this reply meant to me. Thank you x

Not a problem at all.

Please do shout up if you've any questions, concerns, or worries at all. We're always here to help where we can!

Lass

xx