Update: pre op

Hey everyone! As most of you probably know I'm back in Colorado again for more treatment. Thought this was still a great way to keep everyone up to date on everything.

When I was last home in July a check up with the doctors discovered some remaining desease in one of my lymph nodes, and while that sounds nasty it is still pretty straight forward to treat so I am currently back to get it removed. I've got my surgery scheduled for tomorrow at 9am and earlier today I had my pre op and thought it would be good time to update everyone on all the details.

They are planning on removing all of the lymph nodes on the left side of my neck just to be safe. This will include an incision that will probably over lap my last scar as well as go farther along the left side of my neck and possibly up towards my ear in the shape of a "hockey stick." The surgery is about as invasive if not slightly more so than my last surgery and should only last about 3-4 hours. I will probably have to stay the night in the hospital and on the gross side I'll get to have a drain in my neck for a week. The biggest chance of complications are the fact that in order to remove the nodes they have to move some of my neck muscles out of the way and then back again. This will effect my shoulder at least short term and will be a more painful recovery than my last surgery. Another possibility is that I may loose feeling in that part of my neck either short term or permanently. The other more serious side effects are if they hit a nerve as the main nerves in that part of the neck control the vocal folds, the tongue, the shoulder muscles and the diaphragm. However, none of these would be at all life threatening and there is only a %1 chance of this occurring. And with such a skilled surgeon I like to think my odds of any of that happening are even less!

On the bright side I have the most amazing doctors and surgical team and I have no doubt in there abilities. They all seemed extremely prepared and optimistic. The doctors also cleared up some of my confusion and fears about the diseases reoccurrence. I was concerned of it's return as I had understood that the radioactive iodine I took this time last year should have killed all of it. However they reassured me that that should have killed any remaining thyroid tissue as well as having the best chance of killing any cancer cells that may have spread to other parts of my body such as my lungs and bones. So there is very little chance of there being any cancer in other parts of my body which is very good news. However, apparently lymph nodes are much harder to penetrate with radiation, but they are one of the easier locations to remove through surgery so it is nothing to be too concerned about. They also made it clear that I am extremely lucky to be so young and that while it may have slightly raised my chances of it reoccurring again, it has not changed my mortality rate at all. All very good and reassuring things to hear!

I also want to give a huge thank you to everyone who has been so amazing and supportive throughout this whole ordeal. I could not have done it without you and you're love and support! It really means the world to me! I love you all so much and can't wait to put this all behind me and move forward! I also hear 11/11/11 is one of the luckiest and most spiritually connected days of the century so I can only take that as more good luck! All things considered I've had a pretty amazing year and I'm looking forward to continuing that!

I'll probably be pretty out of it, but you can keep an eye on this blog for updates from my family throughout the next few days! :)