Hey, new poster here so I'll post some background info (also sorry in advance for the wall of text).

Got started with the thyroid cancer process back mid-march, had a total thyroidectomy on the 14th of april (goddamn complication from it which required another surgery on the 19th) and now in talks about getting radioactive iodine. To clarify, I'm in the UK going through the NHS.

My surgery was quite a big one from what I can gather/to me at least, I had 25 nodes removed (16 of which where cancerous, PTC) from all around my neck and I believe my upper chest, full thyroid removed and the largest node was 25mm. The scar almost reaches ear to ear.

I guess my main question is, does the extent of the surgery effect how "bad" the iodine effects you? Will I get worse effects because I'm still recovering hard from the surgery? Anyone willing to share what effects they had/for how long it effected them? I mean heck, I still can't eat properly, nor speak properly. I've been told iodine is really pretty short term in it's effects and such and that it doesn't even have too many big effects in the first place, but that info came from someone who had a much smaller surgery and earlier diagnosis.

I wasn't given much time to process anything before my surgery, it's also ended up a lot larger than I was originally told. I come from a history of hardly any health issues, 0 surgeries, nothing. So to go from that to now nearly bed-bound, hospital inpatient for almost 3 weeks, incredibly weak and in serious amounts of pain constantly even with perscribed painkillers, it's a lot. I just want to deal with what I have currently, I don't want to be adding more recovery ontop of all this. Dealing with my nerves healing is going to be hellish on it's own judging by how that's started, my ear/shoulder/neck on the right side is still 95%ish numb...

I don't know how active this place is, so not sure what to expect from. I just would like to hear more from the people who have walked this same path as me, after hearing one person's story it's given me a boost of confidence and I've realised that I value other people's journeys a lot more than the "well it might be x length, you might have y effects" from my doctors after all the experiences I've had with them so far :/