Hi All,   I'm a 43yo male in Brisbane, newly diagnosed with Papillary Thyroid Cancer (PTC).  Most cases of this cancer are mild and easily treatable but mine seems to be more "aggressive", much more.     I noticed a lump in the base of my throat.  Read online about it and saw that 95% of these things are benign which was reassuring.  I went to my doctor who said the same thing and he then referred me to get an ultrasound.  Ultrasound came back saying I had 2 thyroid nodules, one left and one right, both about 2cm with "interesting" features that warranted a fine needle aspiration (FNA).  I had the FNA and pathology came back with a diagnosis of PTC for the right side nodule.   So now I had to deal with a cancer diagnosis but I was still ok because PTC is easily curable for most people.  The usual treatment is thyroid removal (TT), then you have regular checkups but just carry on with life.  Unfortunately, during surgery my surgeon saw the cancer had spread to my central lymph nodes, and did a central node disection at the same time as my TT.  Pathology results came back yesterday and the cancer had spread to 15 of 16 lymph nodes.  Alot.   Now i go for more ultrasound scans on my lateral lymph nodes and a CAT scan on Friday to see just how far this thing has spread.  It seems like everytime I get news, it's bad news, so I'm dreading the results of the next round of tests.   I'm confused about how to act.  Do i just carry on with life as normal.  Do i radically change how i live, in an attempt to cure myself of this?  Do I tell my kids?  What's strange is I feel somehow responsible for this.  I feel like my behavior must have caused this, or my mindset, or my diet, so I feel kind of ashamed of having this disease, but I also know that's ridiculous.  Could it have been an x-ray i had when i broke my collar bone back in high school?  There's no way of knowing which is frustrating.   ... View more