Surgery Update

Post by Brian while Rachel is recovering...

Surgery this morning went well.  We checked into the hospital at 5:45 am this morning for all the prep work.  Surgery began a little after 8:30 am and was over about three hours later.   The report from the doctor was that everything went as planned; they were able to do everything they wanted to do.   While the left half of the thyroid showed no indication of cancer, they still remove that as a standard part of treatment.   They also took out 25-30 lymph nodes, all from either the center or right of her neck.   The good news was that there was no indication of anything on the left side and there are hundreds of lymph nodes in the neck so these won't be missed.  They did tests on some of the lymph nodes they removed and confirmed the diagnosis of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma rather than Medullary.

Six hours after surgery Rachel is still a little groggy and has some pain which is expected.   Fortunately, they are being generous with the pain meds which should allow her to sleep tonight.   We meet with the surgeons tomorrow morning and then with the endocrinologist on Friday morning.   The expectation is that she will have two nights in the hospital and then we will head home in Friday.   We still have a lot to learn about next steps and follow-up.

Thank you for all your notes, thoughts and prayers.