Getting to Know You

What a great surgeon I met Tuesday. For our purposes, let’s call him "Dr. C." He has a familiar photograph of abbey ruins surrounded by grazing cows in Wales (very similar to one we took in Ireland), he loves classical music and plays the violin, and he is “annoyed as all get out” with the non-results of the first biopsy. Sounds like he’s rarely found the hospital radiology department up to the task of a thyroid FNA (Fine Needle Aspiration). So I’m back to an endocrinologist to have another FNA. He talked to the guy while I was in the office and told him what he wanted.

But in the meantime, he said, “No need to delay scheduling things-–we know it has to come out.” It’s just a matter of whether he takes the whole thyroid or only the right side. He was such a regular guy, he pulled up his calendar right there in front of me. He didn’t bat an eye when I said I’d like to wait until after Easter just in case my vocal nerves are so bruised by the operation that I have to wait to recover my speech volume. He said “of course.” Of course, my hope to get the operation right before I left town for the preaching conference in Atlanta he didn’t like. “Cattle cars are no place to recover from surgery,” he said. And my plan for a Monday surgery so that I could preach by Sunday was nixed because he doesn’t do Monday morning surgeries and if I’m not “first in” then there is NO CHANCE to get out the same day. The surgery is technically an overnight procedure and is scheduled as such, but he said that if I took the 7:30 a.m. slot, I MIGHT be able to argue that evening that I was well enough for them to let me go home. I love this guy--a surgeon who will have a real conversation, listen to concerns, and negotiate on the small stuff.

So I’m scheduled for a “full” thyroidectomy on May 8 at 7:30a.m. (arrival by 6 a.m.) with no make-up, lotion, or jewelry. We hope that, before then, the next FNA will come in showing nothing suspicious and the surgeon will be able to adjust his plans and only take out the right side. This being preferable because the left-behind half lobe will likely produce enough thyroid hormone so that a synthetic replacement isn’t necessary. My District Superintendent had already very nicely volunteered to preach for me if I was recovering on a Sunday, so we’re all set.

Fun trivial facts I learned: My scar will be in one of the “deep creases” in my neck. I’ve been developing those wrinkles all my life and now I know why. When my mom had the surgery over 15 years ago, her scar was further down at the base of the neck where it could be cleverly hidden underneath a wide gold chain. But nowadays procedures have changed. The incision is rather wide--3 to 4 inches--so that they don’t have to tear at the edges while they're working on the thyroid. When I told the surgeon that the cosmetic issues weren’t my primary concern he said, “Well, I care. I don’t want you standing up in front of your congregation with a Frankenstein neck. I have a reputation.”

More weird notes: The parathyroid (little nodules within the thyroid) are necessary to regulate the calcium in bones so they’ll be “replanted” in the surrounding muscle tissue. Cool huh?

Last weird item: The surgical intern who was working with my breast surgeon is now a resident with Dr. C so I’ll have a familiar face in the operating room, only working on me 12 inches higher up this time.