We saw Peterson on the 30th, a Tuesday. He told us he was to young for cancer, and started suggesting things that it could be, and was going to send us to the hospital for a CT scan and an Ultra sound, we told him we'd all ready had the ultra sound. He excused himself for a few minutes to go look up the pictures. He came back in and focused 100% on Thyroid Cancer. And told us Shaun was going in for surgery that next morning, Wednesday the 31.
He lost a lot of blood during this surgery, the mass was on a few veins, and the Doctor had to do about a 4 inch incision to removed the tumor from his neck. He had a hard time with this recovery and had a lot of pain. At this point we weren't sure it was truly cancer so we had to wait for Pathology to get back with the Doctor so he could tell us the findings. This all fell over labor day so we had to wait until September 6th (Tuesday of last week) for those results. Dr. Peterson's office called around 2 o'clock that day and said he needed to see us at 4 to go over the findings. At this point we knew it was Cancer, just had no idea how bad it would be.
We sat in his office while he told us it was cancer, but it is VERY VERY RARE. Not only did he have cancer but 3 forms. Papillary, follicular, and Hursle. That is when he told us we would be doing surgery again the next morning, the 7th. That surgery only took an hour and a half, the first was well over 3 hours long. He came in and told me things went well, they removed the left thyroid, so he has no thyroid now. and that he found a lymph node that looked questionable. so he removed that also. We hope to hear back today if he also has Thyroid Lymphoma. Which would make a grand total of 4 cancers in his neck.
He will start radiation in a few weeks, his thyroid replacement meds are on order and I should be able to pick them up today. He has to be on them for a few weeks, than off for 2 weeks, to clear him out of thyroid hormones, than he will start radiation. The kids are having a hard time understanding all this so my Parents offered their house for shaun to do his radiation. That way we don't have to remove the kids from home. We are just telling them daddy is going on another business trip so they don't stress More. I'm sad I can't be there for him, but he can't be around children, pregnant or nursing woman. Only healthy adults. We aren't sure how long this will take, we are just waiting to hear back from that Doctor's office for an appointment.
He's tired and weak now, hope he can perk up more once on the replacement therapy. His pain is gone for the most part, the incision hurts sometimes but is healing. We found out today he has an appointment on the 28th of September to start the long road to radiation. It all happened so fast, now it feels like the treatment will take forever!
