Stage Seven: The Second Chance

The surgeon who had performed my grandma’s first thyroidectomy—the man who had saved her once—was furious when he heard the cancer had come back. He told us to find another doctor, another hospital. He was done. Not out of arrogance, but out of conviction.

He had spent over thirty-five years in surgery, with a spotless record. In his career, no disease he had removed had ever returned. He was confident in his craft, almost proud of it, and now he felt betrayed—by the radiation department, by the lack of coordination, and even, in some way, by us. We hadn’t told him she hadn’t gone through with radiation.

His disappointment wasn’t cruel; it was heavy. He scolded us, yes, but it came from a place of responsibility—the kind only a seasoned surgeon carries. He was angry at the system that had failed her. Angry that the one patient he had believed he’d saved had been caught in bureaucratic carelessness.

But I couldn’t let the story end there. I couldn’t let my grandma’s final thoughts be filled with guilt, wondering what sin she had committed in her life to deserve so much pain. I spoke to him—respectfully, humbly. I told him she didn’t have much left, but what she did have, she deserved to live with peace, not fear. She deserved to live knowing someone was still fighting for her.

He listened. Maybe it was the quiet insistence in my voice, or maybe it was the memory of his own promise as a doctor—but he finally agreed. He said he would do it. He would operate again.

And so, on the 13th of December, 2024, he performed surgery on my grandmother once more—a second operation for the recurrent leiomyosarcoma of the thyroid.

It wasn’t just a medical decision. It was an act of faith—his in his hands, and ours in her strength.

By late November 2024, the swelling on her neck had become impossible to ignore. The same familiar lump — firm, painless, and sitting just below her jawline — had returned. She was admitted again to ESI Model Hospital, Rajajinagar, under the care of Dr. Aravind Ramkumar.

Her case sheet described it clinically:

A solitary swelling of size 3 × 3 cm in front of the neck, inferior to the mandible, with well-defined borders, firm to hard in consistency, non-pulsatile, moving with deglutition.

In simple words — the sarcoma had returned, quiet but defiant.

The doctors ran tests. Her vitals were stable — pulse 68 bpm, blood pressure 128/78 mmHg, oxygen 98%. No fever, no cyanosis, no clubbing. But the ultrasound told the story her body already knew:

A relatively well-defined, heterogeneously hyperechoic lesion in the midline of the neck, 3.2 × 1.9 cm, with minimal internal vascularization.

The PET-CT confirmed it — no metastasis, thyroid absent, heterogeneously enhancing lesion in the subhyoid region (2 × 3 cm).

The FNAC report, though brief, cut deep: positive for malignant cells, suggestive of recurrent leiomyosarcoma of the thyroid.

Surgery, however, had to wait. Her TSH levels were elevated, a common aftermath of thyroidectomy, but one that made anesthesia risky. The doctors deferred the operation for two weeks, adjusting her Thyronorm, Telma, Metoprolol, and calcium supplementation while sending her home on oral medication and strict follow-up instructions.

That waiting period was excruciating. She was conscious, oriented, and cooperative — the file said so — but beneath that calm, she knew what was happening. She could feel the tumor’s weight each time she swallowed.

When the surgeon — the same one who had operated on her the first time — finally saw the scans, his face hardened. The FNAC confirmed his fears: it was back. At first, he refused to operate again. He had decades of experience and had never lost a case to recurrence. But this one haunted him.

It took all my strength and humility to convince him — not to prove his record wrong, but to give my grandmother more time. Time to live without fear, to stop wondering why fate had chosen her. I begged him, not as a doctor’s relative, but as a granddaughter who couldn’t let her go without one last fight.

He finally agreed. The surgery was scheduled for December 13th, 2024.