We Need to Talk About Your Pathology Part 2

2 weeks after surgery, I had an appointment with the surgeons and I had a huge list of questions about when my voice would be better and a few questions about when I could start running or riding my bike again. Which brings us to the “we need to talk about your pathology” that Dr Campbell said. I could not believe that I had cancer. I never thought for one moment that I would have it. Of course I knew that the reason we had surgery was because that was a danger but I really did not think that I would have it. I just thought that we were taking it out before it turned into cancer. Dr Gosnell and Dr Campbell asked if I had any questions and I had already asked all of my prepared questions which were about my voice and working out. I had not prepared any questions about cancer so I finally asked “uh, what’s it called?” Papillary Cancer, I learned. And, “uh, is there some place that I can read up on Papillary Cancer?” Thyca.org, I learned. And then there was the practical: we won’t do the next phase of surgery to remove the left side of your thyroid until your laryngeal nerve is healed. And we will test your thyroid function in a few weeks to figure out if you need to be on low-level thyroid medicine between surgeries. I will have that nerve tested in about a month and then have the next surgery approximately 2 months after the first assuming the nerve is better by then. After the second surgery, I will have to take thyroid medicine for the rest of my life and while it can take some time to get the dosage right, I figure that it will be great to finally have a functioning thyroid even if it comes from a pill and not actually a functioning thyroid. My appointment with Dr Gosnell & Dr Campbell started about an hour late and I was with them for about an hour so Paul called several times when I was in there. When I got out, I didn’t want to call him right away because I was kind of scared and didn’t want to scare him. I didn’t want to tell him on the phone but he called me when I was driving and asked what they said and I told him that I could run/bike whenever I felt like it and then he asked, what did they say about the pathology? So I had to tell him along with the “my life won’t be cut short because of this”. He told me that he loved me and that we would go through this together. I was glad that he knew. I didn’t want to call my mom because I knew she would worry but I decided to call her anyway because I wanted to talk to her and she had a really good reaction. She was calm and said that we would just get through it. And so began the calls.