Visit to the ENT

Thursday, January 24th
Today was the appointment with the ENT, Dr. LaFrentz. He met with us and asked lots of questions and went over some more of the pathology report. He explained even more in detail some of the things that Darrell is facing. He agreed that the left side of Darrell's thyroid was cancerous and also had a non-cancerous disease. He said this disease had made everything around the area "sticky". He said the "mass" was about 2 inches. We had been thinking that the 3 nodules that had been located were at 3 different locations, but they were kinda stacked on top of each other and the "mass" was protruding from his thyroid. This protrusion also affected the lymph nodes and lots of other tissue around the area. He agreed that Darrell needed to have the "good" side of his thyroid removed so that he could receive some radiation treatment that would kill out all of the cancer that might be in the tissue in the area. We asked about not taking out the other side, but he said that if they did that, they would have to give Darrell about 100 times the radiation, because the "good" side of the thyroid would soak up all the radiation. The timing is also critical, because as long as all this tissue has remnants of the pappilary carcinoma, there is the possibility of it spreading. All of this start making sense to us since we felt that the surgeon was really concerned and had been trying to let us know this, but didn't want so much to overwhelm us with the information.

The major concern for all of the doctors has been the vocal chords. Dr. LaFrentz deadened Darrell's nose and throat and ran a scope down his throat to check out the vocal chords. He saw that the left side was not damage (Thank the Lord) but that it was not active/moving. He said that it had probably been traumatized. He said that since it was not damaged, that it might take a couple of weeks or maybe even several months to "wake up". We praying for it to wake up NOW!

Dr. LaFrentz said that he could do the surgery, or that we could go back to Dr. Fernandez, but what he recommended (and he also had told Dr. Fernandez) was that he wanted to refer us to a specialist at UAB in Birmingham--Dr. Glen Peters. Dr. Peters is in the Kirklin Clinic in Birmingham. He's the "king of thyroids" (my words). He's an ENT and does about 2000 surgeries a year. Dr. LaFrentz said that he wanted to send Darrell to the best possible doctor. Praise the Lord! There's the 2nd opinion, and we didn't even have to ask for it. Thank you Lord for working in our lives!
~Vickey