Medical Trifecta Update and Surgeon Expectations

I'm mentally preparing for thyroid surgery next week. Am happy to report that all those needle sticks didn't hit anything that looked like cancer -- so, it's looking very good! Please send some good thoughts my way on October 20th!

So now I'm just thinking about surgery, expectations and my encounters with surgeons. Aside from one many years ago who was downright nasty, I've found most have a forthright confidence that is reassuring. Of course, the confidence is bordering on arrogance; that's ok. They are going to be performing a bold and audacious act on my body. Although generally appearing open to patient questions, I've noticed they most certainly have their spiel tightly crafted, are the alpha in the conversation and maintain their ground. I spent ten minutes yesterday trying to talk my surgeon into something. I was persistent and had the backing of another doc she respects but she repeatedly, logically and nicely slammed me to the ground. I think I thanked her. She's good.


It's the consistent unrealistic expectations of recovery timelines and minimizing of surgery impact that I've learned to not believe from them. Oh, don't get me wrong. They are required to and most certainly discuss the worst case scenarios. But to reassure, they cite statistics that the big ugly scenarios are as likely as winning the lottery. Which is certainly nice to hear. (Well, the brain surgery stats weren't quite as reassuring, but...) It's the follow-up that you'll be salsa dancing in a couple of days that I've found not helpful for realistic planning.

One of my other docs referred to surgeons as huckster salesmen. While amusing I can't fully support that assertion but do agree with him about doubling their recovery timelines as they appear to be overly-optimistic bordering on delusional about those. If you think about it, they usually follow-up once to make sure the bad scary stuff isn't happening like infection and then turn you over to another doc -- the neurologist, endocrinologist, orthopedist or your primary. So, they don't generally hear our twists, turns, and bumps in the road on our recovery. And, I guess from their perspective if the big nasties didn't happen under their watch, it was successful.

So, with this surgery, I've only pursued brief discussions about recovery timelines. And, refreshingly she's offered little. We'll see and hopefully I'll work out any bumps that might arise with the endocrinologist.

Ironically I came across the cartoon below around the same time that I found a video of my neurosurgeon promoting outpatient craniotomies in certain cases!  This is the same doc who suggested I could return to work two weeks after my brain surgery -- crazy character is all I can say!