Thyroid Update

Last Thursday I had an appointment with my new elected surgeon to discuss what we are going to do about the growth in my thyroid.

After looking at the CT scans of my neck and discussions with the pathologist who did the Fine Needle Aspiration on the 'lump', they are not entirely sure that the growth is in fact cancerous. The main concern the surgeon has for me, is that I have had three surgical proceedures in the last 12 months and he doesn't want to do a forth operation if I don't really need to have it. In his own words he explained that in USA there has been a high increase of people thought to have thyroid cancer. They have had their 'thyroids' ripped out only to discover from tests post-surgery, that they didn't actually have thyroid cancer. There is a 10 mm calcification on my thyroid, there is no doubt about it but it has been there for at least 15 months to my knowledge. If it is malignant, it is not life threatening and has not spread anywhere else. Another reason is that if they take out the thyroid, then I will have to be on thyroid meds for the rest of my life. If the para-thyroids (little glands behind the thyroid)also get taken in the surgery, then I will have to be on calcium for life as well. I'm not too keen on taking any meds at this stage as I will be taking tamoxifen (to prohibit the growth of breast cancer) for the next five years. He said that I am a difficult case (I could have told him that) and he is going to meet with the medical board to get their opinion on what we should do. One option is to monitor it regularly and if it starts to grow, then perhaps look at surgey then. There is no need to rush into anything so I don't see him now for three months which I am pleased about.

As promised, here is my new nipple tatto. I'm not entirely pleased with it as it is a bit on the orange side and slightly too big but I guess it looks ok from a distance. Probably not going to be doing too much nude sunbathing in the future anyhow. They wait until the body is warm and they take the measurement from the areola. I can't see the sense in that logic really because if you've got your clothes off, nine times out of ten you are going to be cold, so therefore they should have taken the measurement whilst the body temperature was lower, if you get my drift.