I have a choice. I can have a partial thyroidectomy (basically a lobe-ectomy of my left lobe) or a total thyroidectomy (TT). The surgery will take either an hour and a half or two hours, depending on which choice I make.
It is considered an out-patient surgery because I will be in the hospital for less than 24 hours, but I will stay the night and then will be off work for a minimum of 2 weeks. They want me to spend the night so they can keep an eye out for the after effects of the anesthesia (vomiting, coughing, etc.) that may wreak havoc with my incision. Sounds fun!
The doctor says that the sutures are on the inside with adhesive bandages on the outside of my neck to minimize scarring. The incision will be made in an existing neck crease in order to make it less noticeable. The surgeon even leaned in, looked at my neck and said "yep, I can see the beginning of a neck crease now". Thanks Doc!
Now for the technical part. The left lobe is the one with the large nodule. The chance that it is cancerous is only 10-15%, however due to the fact that it is still growing, they want to get it out now. The larger the nodule and thyroid, the riskier the surgery. Here's where the decision comes in......IF it is malignant, then they go right back in after the right half. So, 10-15% chance I will have two surgeries in a row.
If it's not malignant, the surgeon says that I have about a 15-20% chance that I will be back in the next 10 years to remove the right half anyway. I think it was the chance that I would have more nodules or continued growth of my right lobe. To be honest, I don't remember exactly why...I was busy weighing the odds in my head.
SO......I am leaning towards a TT. Quite frankly, I just want to get the whole thing over with and not have to worry about it anymore. I know some people are very attached to their thyroids and want to save whatever they can, but I think I would spend far too much time worrying about another surgery. The nice thing is that I have until December to decide. Yep, the Doc told me I could think about it. What a guy!
The question is, if I have the whole thing removed, can I still use the excuse of My Goiter Made Me Do It?
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