I'm new

My name is Kathy. In Feb 02 I felt a lump in my neck. I can't remember when I first felt it but I think it had been there for a long time and I had been ignoring it. I am 38 years old and the mother of a three year old son and a ten month old daughter. My husband is a physician, a gastroenterologist to be exact. I asked him to feel my neck and as usual he said it was nothing, probably a swollen lymph node associated with a cold I was fighting. He protested but I called a friend of ours who is a radiologist and he offered to scan my neck at my convenience. My son had a three year old check up scheduled later that week so I met with the radiologist before that appointment. He discovered a large nodule on the right side of my thyroid. We walked over to the office of the "thyroid man", a doctor triple board certified in internal medicine, endocrinology and nuclear medicine. He felt my neck and reviewed the scan and ordered an radioactive iodine scan and uptake. He said he didn't feel anything in my neck that would lead him to believe it was cancer but due to the size of the nodule, he felt that it should be removed. The results of the uptake study showed a cold nodule. The ENT performed a FNA, the results of which were benign. We scheduled surgery for 19 March to remove the right side of my thyroid. The frozen sections during surgery were benign and my surgical recovery was unremarkable. I returned to the ENT one week post op to have my stitches removed. I was in a hurry as I was on my way to the final walk through before closing on our new home. The ENT informed me that the final path report showed multifocal papillary carcimona with a solid/trabicular variant. The solid/trabicular variant was something that was stumping the pathologists so my slides were sent to a world renowned expert in this area who concurred with the orginal diagnosis. I scheduled completion thyroidectomy for 7 May since I needed time to settle us into our new home, make arrangements for help with the children and cancel several scheduled travel plans. The second surgery has left me with a few very unpleasant complications. The final path report showed no cancer in the left lobe of my thyroid but the doctors don't seem fazed either way by this seemingly good news. I am scheduled for radioactive iodine ablation on 18 June. I developed a wound seroma that needed to be drained. 25 ccs of fluid was removed from my neck last Monday. This fluid almost immediately recollected and I was back in the ENT's office on Tuesday. He aspirated 10 ccs more and placed a drain and a pressure dressing which my husband changed twice a day. On Wednesday evening the drain fell out. I was sceduled to have the drain removed on Thurday morning so I waited until then to return to the hospital. The ENT thought everything looked OK and he did not replace the drain. He placed a band aid over the incision site and sent me on my way. The fluid continues to collect and drain through the still open wound in my neck. I will see the on call ENT tomorrow a.m. The ENT said this is the first seroma associated with a thyroidectomy that he has seen in fifteen years. He tells me to take it easy. My husband returns to his clinical duties on Monday and I will resume primary care for our two children. I have hired a nanny to assist me during the next few months but she doesn't start until 31 May. I plan to take a much needed R&R week after I am deemed to be radioactive free following my ablation. The "thyroid guy" is reluctant to perform my ablation in the hospital. He says most ablations are now done on an outpatient basis. I refused this option because of the radiation exposure risk to my two young children. He says I could exercise special precautions such as shutting myself off in a room away from my family. Is this guy for real? Anyway to whoever has hung in there and read this entire vent, I thank you. I am angry. I don't know why this is happening to me. I am mad at my physician- husband for not picking up on this sooner. I know it's not his fault but I find myself blaming him for trying to blow off my initial complaint. I worry about whether this cancer has spread to other parts of my body and whether this cancer puts me at an increased risk for developing other forms of cancer. I would appreciate any and all correspondence. Thank you

Kathy