New Member Undergoing Treatment Currently with Questions

wepn829

Hello - new member (50 y/o male) to this site, so hello everyone! I was diagnosed with Papillary Thyroid Cancer (Follicular Variant) two months ago. They discovered this because a CT scan uncovered I had a 9.5 cm mass in my chest that was squeezing my trachea down to an opening the size of just 3 pencil tips. Within two days of the CT scan, I was in the hospital and a few days later the mass and my thyroid were removed (the mass had grown from my thyroid). A week later they confirmed the cancer diagnosis. Two months later, I am currently in isolation writing this message after having RAI therapy. Needless to say, this entire experience was fast moving and a little overwhelming!

Question for this group - after my body-scan last week before the RAI therapy, the test indicated that the cancer seems to have spread to about half a dozen lymph nodes in and around my neck and possibly a few nodes in my right lung. Reading up on this, usually they can tell this before the surgery to remove the thyroid, so they often remove the cancerous lymph nodes then as well. In my case, they did not have a cancer diagnosis until after my thyroid was removed, so they did nothing with my lymph nodes. So my question is - any idea how they typically treat this after it has moved to they lymph nodes? Is the expectation that the RAI therapy will also kill these cells, or is another surgery or even beam radiation an option? My doctors are being vague about it, but being in isolation currently, my head is spinning!

Anyone have or know of any similar situation?