Left thyroid malignant nodule and enlarged lymph nodes

Hey. I had thyroid cancer two and a half years ago.

It is very common to have no symptoms whatsoever. And when they say thyroid cancer is treatable, it means that is virtually unheard of for people, especially those under about 50, to die of it. I went on a mad researching spree when I was diagnosed and honestly, found tstudies that ended with a version of "and we also intended to compare (whatever it was they were studying)'s effect on death rates, but we couldn't find enough people who died of it to make accurate stats!" I'm paraphrasing, but...that definitely gave me confidence.

Also, the treatment is not what you imagine when you hear "cancer". It's very unlikely that you will have to have chemotherapy or radiotherapy or anything like that. Generally, removing the thyroid and possibly some lymph nodes, if it has spread to those, pretty much treats it.

You may also need radioiodine treatment to reduce the risk of reccurrance, but that is basically just swallowing a capsule. It's annoying because you have to get injections beforehand (and you may have to go on a diet for two weeks before it) and then afterwards, you are radioactive, so you have to spend time in isolation to avoid contaminating people, but it doesn't hurt or make you feel sick or anything. It's just a hassle and nothing more.

How it went for me was I was diagnosed in November 2019. I had my surgery to remove my thyroid on the 6th of January, 2020, went back to work about the 6th or 7th of February and that was basically that. I do have to take tablets now to do what my thyroid previously did and I had radioiodine treatment the following May. It should have been over the Easter holidays (I'm a teacher so that would mean I didn't have to miss work), but as you know, the world shut down.

One thing is after the radioiodine treatment, if you get it, they will probably do a full body scan. Waiting for the results of this is a little scary, although the consultant pretty much told me she wasn't expecting to find anything, you always worry you will be the one in a hundred where it's spread or something.

Apart from the inconveniences, it really wasn't much more of a deal than say getting your appendix or gallbladder or something removed. If it's any consolation, there was absolutely no issue about my going back to work during covid.

I was 39 and went to the doctor about irregular periods. They pretty much brushed that off but the doctor noticed a cyst on my thyroid that he said should be checked out. No noticeably enlarged lymph nodes but the surgeon took a load out anyway and they found spread to 8, I think. With papillary thyroid cancer, spread to lymph nodes is common and doesn't massively affect prognosis. It is a factor in raising the risk of recurrence, but seems to have little impact on survival, though like I said, some of the studies I read seemed to have difficulty making comparisons as overall deaths were so low.

I mean, nobody wants any form of cancer but I have read that it's about the least worst option where cancer is concerned.

Best of luck with your operation. I was in the same situation in January 2020 and yup, was back at work and back to normal after about a month. 

Hello and thanks for the good wishes! I had my surgery done 6 days ago. Everything went well, the only complication is that a nerve got likely damaged (unavoidable due the position of the tumor) and it might affect my voice level in the future; they say it's something that can be solved if needs be anyway.

Other than everything is going quite well, the surgery was quite long but the surgeon and his team were happy with the result. I was discharged from the hospital 2 days ago.

Tomorrow I have a scheduled appointment with the doctor. For now the plan is to have a PET scan and iodine treatment administered within 4 weeks. After that I will have regular checkups. Hopefully nothing else will be needed.

Recovery is going well, better than I expected. My voice is hoarse though, and I sound like I caught a cold or have a bad sore throat.

Thank you all for the comments and the good wishes!

If you had the same kind of surgery, how was your voice afterwards? When did it start going back to normal?

It's now been over 3 weeks since the surgery and I'm doing overall better. My voice is stronger although one of the vocal cords is not functioning properly since they had to sacrifice a nerve. I have to say that mentally though it's getting pretty challenging. From the analysis of the stuff they removed during the surgery, 20% of the cells showed tall cell features. It was explained to me that it means it was a bit more aggressive than a normal papillary cancer but the outlook remains positive (I spoke to many doctors, here and abroad). I'm now waiting to get the radio iodine, which will likely be at a high dosage because of the tall cells observed. Did any of you have tall cell features or do you know more about how they affect the prognosis when they're observed in (what is still considered) a small percentage? I had a look at the literature and there seems to be a lot of conflicting results. Some report a 10% survival decrease, some say that taking age into account, there is no difference at all in survival rates compared to classic papillary. Would be nice to know if any of you were in the same situation. Thanks!

After the radioiodine pill, you feel no different physically at all. At least I didn't. The only side effect I had was a nosebleed about 10 or 11 days later that I firstly put down to my sinus medication, which it is a side effect of, but it was much stronger than most sinus nosebleeds I get, so I googled out of interest and it mentioned that many people have reported nosebleeds 10-11 days later.

To be honest, had I been slipped it in a drink or something and didn't know I'd taken it, I would have noticed absolutely nothing whatsoever.

The scan did make me feel a little like I was captured by a Batvillain and was about to be crushed. I was half-amused and half yikes, this is getting a bit closer than I expected.

I was a bit concerned about the results of the test so was a bit nervous when they came close

Hello,

thank you very much, hearing about people that went through it and are now doing well always helps a lot! I'm sure boredom won't be a problem for me, covid lockdowns taught me how to cope with isolation

Also, 10 days after the treatment all my family is coming here to visit me and my girlfriend finally got her visa approved and is moving back to the UK, so I have a number of things to look forward to at the end of the isolation period