My primary was particularly alarmed about the size of my tumors when first discovered and made no bones about sending me to a surgeon outside of my immediate medical area. This surgeon does about 3 thyroid surgeries weekly, and because of the expertise he has gained through that experience , my voice box nerves and all of my parathyroid glands are unmolested and intact (apparently that is not the case with many-so thank you, thank you, thank you). My follow up team is local including the endocrinologist assigned to me. This doctor has ordered, what seemed to me, a full scale RAI without even having the results of the removed thyroid toxicology report! That kind of makes me feel like a number, and as long as all the boxes get checked I'm good regardless of what my personal situation requires. I have a post surgery follow up with the surgeon next week and I am going to directly ask him about my concerns. If my surgeon wants me to follow up with his team, I will do that even though the extra travel is a pain. I am also going to reach out to my local oncologist to get her opinion. After all RAI is a chemo therapy and seems it would fall under her auspices and not that of an endocrinologist (maybe I'm wrong. I really don't know). At this point, I do not have enough understanding to be comfortable with the up coming decisions I will have to make. This is extremely complicated and I would probably need years of med school to gain the knowledge I want so It will come down having trust, both in the people and the processes-hopefully I can find and do that!