I am so very glad that a fellow homeschooling mom told me about the Thyroid Clinic at a local teaching hospital. I had resigned myself to needing surgery because this tumor is not going to go away on its own, and whether it is cancer or not at some point it will be big enough to cause problems since there isn't a whole lot of space in the neck.
This surgeon had a very different approach than the first surgeon. He started by coming into the room and sitting down and being relaxed about the whole thing as he talked with us. He said there are 2 ways we can go at this point. One is to remove the tumor and see if it is cancer, the other is to wait and see if it grows enough to be a problem. His feeling is that the tumor probably grew a lot during my pregnancy with Corbin, and it may shrink a little once he stops nursing. He said some people hear cancer and want it removed immediately, and others want to take a wait and see approach. He said either option is fine. Thyroid cancer is one of the easiest to treat with such a high cure rate that waiting really is not a problem.
If I do opt for surgery he would only remove the half with the tumor, which would give me a 60-70% chance of not needing thyroid medicine. He said it it common for the thyroid to not work as well as we age, and with my family history I may end up needing thyroid meds anyway whether the tumor is removed or not. My ND pointed out at my appt with her that chances are with the tumor as large as it is, the left side probably isn't functioning properly for me now anyway and with it gone I may be fine. (It also helped to find a couple friends who have been on thyroid medication for years and who are both doing well. It gives me hope that I won't become like my mother - though that genetic link is still there...)
The surgeon is very willing to work with me on making the surgery as non-disruptive as we can. I will not have to stay in the hospital overnight unless there is a problem and while it is best to avoid nursing for 24 hours, Corbin's night time nursing may be ok after pumping + dumping for the day - we can find an anesthesia that will be out of my system by then and/or be one that is ok for babies who go in for surgery.
If the tumor is cancer (20-30% chance right now and they will not be able to tell until it is removed), then chances are just the one surgery will take care of it. In the surgeon's opinion radioactive iodine is overused and a lot of people are so concerned about squashing any possibility of cancer that they take things farther than is necessary. If I want to go with just removing the one side and stop treatment after that, it should not be a problem.
The one caveat to this whole wait and see thing is the opinion of the pathologists upon viewing my biopsy slides. If they say it should come out, then we go with what they say. If they are not concerned, then I go in for an ultrasound in May to see if the tumor has changed - assuming I don't have any symptoms before then.
I figure May is a good time to go in. My fertility tends to come back about 12 months after baby is born, so May is perfect timing to see if hormonal changes make a difference with this tumor. Also, Corbin will be eating solid food by then and can more easily skip nursing if I have surgery.
If I get pregnant again, there is a good chance it would make the tumor grow, so I may opt for getting it out this summer anyway since fall would be about when I can expect to be expecting again - assuming my pattern of the last 14 years continues.
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