My thyroid saga

So yesterday I met with the surgeon and she gave me my options: continue to watch it or surgery. Since I've already watched it for 2 years but now it's growing at a pretty fast rate, I opted for surgery. She said there was only a 20% chance that it would be cancerous. Once she's taken a sample of the mass, she'll send it for a frozen section and get the answer before she closes me up. If it's NOT cancerous, I just lose the right side of my thyroid and hopefully the part that's left will be enough to produce adequate amounts of thyroid hormone. But if it IS cancerous, then the nodule and the whole thyroid come out. And then I have to take replacement thyroid pills for the rest of my life. But that's better than cancer, so it's hard to argue that point. The surgery will take about 2.5 hours to do and apparently I have a nice little crease in my neck exactly where she would make the incision. It's nice to wrinkle in the right spots--if one has to wrinkle at all. ;)
I don't know the exact date yet, but probably the first week of February. She's full until January 27. But, there's a big chance that I can go earlier if there are cancellations of other surgeries. She advised I take off 3-4 weeks off work, but better 4 weeks because of a nerve that runs through there that goes to my vocal cords. It will become inflamed with the surgery and I have to allow for the swelling to go down before trying to talk. So that's nice....I think. Time off work is always appreciated. Plus I have plenty of warning to my co workers so they can arrange for my absence. And one of my coworkers is finally coming back to join us next month after a few months off for hip replacement surgery. So, it all works out. As it usually does.