Learning to live with cancer

As expected, I had to call Dr. Jerk in the afternoon. He actually picked up the phone! That is a first for a medical doctor! The short of it was that he said that Dr. F (my endocrinologist) and Dr. Tuttle from MSK conferred and said at this point we are going to just monitor with another Ultrasound in 3 months looking for changes. I still need to speak with Dr. F and go over this plan with her. I am left with some unanswered questions that Dr. Jerk couldn't answer.

My concerns:
Despite surgery and RAI, there is now cancer in my neck. Was it there and non-responsive to RAI, or did it just start to spread again.

I take synthroid and cytomel everyday, which essentially is supposed to act like a daily dose of chemotherapy, to keep my TSH as suppressed as it can be. And it is suppressed to 0.006 at last check. So if I am so suppressed, why is this cancer showing up now.

Would another round of RAI be effective?

When do we decide to do the surgery, with 3 lymph nodes affected, 5? Is there a magic number? Do we wait for it to go to the right side of the neck? or what if it goes to the lungs or elsewhere?

Am I going to regret 'just monitoring' in 10 years if it is spread elsewhere? I would rather be proactive, not reactive.

Dr. Jerk did not have numbers for me - I need statistics and facts. I need to read journals that say that 10,000 people aged 43 who had metastasis in an unlikely place went on to live to 100 years old. I asked him what Dr. Tuttle based his recommendation on and his answer was experience. I get 'experience'. I have been practicing veterinary medicine for 17 years and have 'experience'. I just want some numbers to back up his experience, especially since I don't know him at all. There have to be research papers, I just can't find them.

Dr. Jerk said that if I develop more lymph nodes that look abnormal, I will see him again to do the biopsy with the TG washout test. OK, fine, but if we are not going to do anything then WHY? And again, when will we do something? What has to change?

I also question why did Dr. Jerk need to confer with Dr. Tuttle and Dr. F. I get the impression that he deals with first time thyroid cancer patients for the most part, doing primarily total thyroidectomies and not necessarily dealing with advanced thyroid cancers.

I would like to go meet with Dr. Tuttle at MSK and speak to him in person, or at least someone in his group. There are two clinical trials at MSK that I may fit the criteria for and I want more information.
http://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/adult/thyroid/clinical-trials/09-048
http://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/adult/thyroid/clinical-trials/11-115

I am OK with seeing what happens in the next 3 months with the ultrasound. I am not OK with not having a better plan other than just learn to live with cancer inside your body. I think cancer is too unpredictable, even if it is a 'good' cancer. Carcinoma is still carcinoma and we know it has already metastasized. I want more opinions and am going to pursue other options.

The wheels will start turning on new appointments in the next few days. I will continue to research and try to answer some of the questions I have. I will be my biggest advocate! No one has as much of a stake in my life as I do!