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Papillary Thyroid Cancer: Any experiences to share?

Thyroid Cancer | Last Active: 19 hours ago | Replies (21)

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@debbieliv

Hi Lilyann,
I had 1/2 my thyroid removed which made me hypothyroid so that is why I take the levothyroxine. They wanted to remove the other half, but then I went to the specialists in Chicago and they thought I could wait and monitor it. The specialist said that they find a focus of papillary cancer in 5% of autopsies. Anyway I went to two specialist one in Chicago, his name is Degroot - he wrote the book on Thyroid I guess; he seemed like I could wait. Anyway I guess it was a small amount; but that was 30 years ago and for 20 years I was monitoring it. Also just because it was in one nodule, might not be in the others. The hospital at the time seemed like they were surgery crazed. Thank you for sharing your story.

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Replies to "Hi Lilyann, I had 1/2 my thyroid removed which made me hypothyroid so that is why..."

hi debbieliv, lilyann here, yes, i do believe you are correct as far as some trends like hysterectomies were back in the 70's. i am so glad that things did work out for you and i believe from all my reading now that you probably did not have the aggressive papillary cancer, so i am very happy for you. on the second surgery is when i found out that my papillary was aggressive and guess what, now its listed as differentiated cancer, meaning right next to the anaplastic. which is the worst one. i had no idea what a journey it was going to be and when i got the radioactive iodine, high dose, did not know and that was after the second surgery. so the storms of life are still going on. again, so happy for you and so glad you wrote back to tell me. they also told me.......that if i did not have the surgery, that i would have been long gone. so it bewilders me as to how they come up with this and that and the reason the radioactive iodine did not kill off the rest of the cancer as they said it would..........because of the anaplastic. so we learn from one another and i have surely learned from being on mayo, don't know what i would do with out all the people that write in and so glad for each and every one of them. so you take care.