Well, I just got off the phone with the endocrinologist, and it's another good news bad news situation.
First, they confirmed the diagnosis of endocrine (thyroid) neoplasia, likely causing atypical paraneoplastic syndrome; which isn't a great thing, but it means there's something to treat, and it accounts for the endocrine symptoms I've been experiencing for the last few years.
Also, they didn't see any active malignant activity from the FNA, which is good.... but...
Unfortunately, the type of tumor I have is less common, a follicular neoplasm (about 15% of all thyroid tumors are follicular); and they can't tell from the FNA if it's carcenoma (malignant), adenocarcenoma (pre-malignant), or an adenoma (benign). I won't know until they take it out, and run pathology on the whole mass.
In particular it's a macrofollicular neoplasm, exhibiting enlarged and malformed nuclei. This means it is more likely to be a carcenoma or adenocarcinoma; but only slightly, and again, they can't tell 'til they cut it out.
Also, it appears to be a differentiated mass (meaning there could be more than one type of neoplastic cell growth, grown together), which is also not good; but again, we won't know until they take it out.
The good news is, though follicular thyroid cancer has a slightly lower survival rate than the more common papillary cancer, it's still over 90%.
Also, if it turns out to be an adenoma, they may not have to take out my entire thyroid. They may just do a thyroid lobectomy.
The surgeon should be calling me early next week to set up a time for a surgical consult. Hopefully She'll be able to get this done quickly, so I can get past it and on to recovery.
