Today, he checked my scar and said it was healing properly. It had a few raised areas--thicknesses, that he said would eventually smooth out.
He asked where I wanted to go for treatment, and discussed visiting with his counterparts at Emory for the Radioactive iodine. I told him I had been doing a lot of research and was considering other centers in the country.
Pathology Report
He then handed my my copy of the final pathology report. I was expecting to see the tumor size about the size that was shown during the ultrasound. Unfortunately, the size was much larger.
The tumor was 6.5 cm x 6 x 3 cm. The key size that is also used in predicting the prognosis is if the tumor is more than 4.0 cm. I had the short straw here. (For those not familiar with the metric system a centimeter is about the width of a dime, so visualize dimes placed end-to-end. )
Also, note that the thyroid itself was bigger than this 9.5 cm x 7.6 cm x 3 cm and that the tumor was within the thyroid.
Something just as relevant--the pathology report shows "vascular invasion". This is not good. Hurthle cells are more likely to travel through the blood stream to distant parts of the body, versus the lymph nodes. Human nature (fear of death) is going to make me assume that if there was vascular invasion, there is a strong chance that some cancer cells have been transported to other parts of the body. This means I am in for a life long fight, hopefully a long one.
The following is the pathology report. If anyone wants to receive an
actual copy, you can email me and I will send you the PDF.
