My name is Tess. I’m a 45-year-old writer living in Venice. I woke up one morning in January to discover a lemon-sized lump above my left clavicle. After receiving an ultrasound, my primary care physician diagnosed it as a multinodular goiter and referred me to an endocrinologist who took one look at me and proclaimed, “Well, that’s got to come out.” She referred me to Dr. Michael Yeh’s surgical department, and when I called I was directed to the UCLA website. Impressive. You read about Dr. Yeh first. This is clearly his department: he established the program, he’s the program director, he’s the guy with seemingly all the experience and all the buzz. It would make sense to want his capable hands in your neck. But here’s where luck in timing works out to my advantage. The doctor visits and referrals process was already 6 weeks and counting, and the growth in my neck was becoming increasingly more uncomfortable—pushing my trachea, interfering with my swallowing. Dr. Yeh didn’t have an opening for another month. But Dr. Harari could see me the following week. I did my due diligence and poked around. I liked what I’d read about her and what I was hearing from other doctors in the UCLA system. And I figured that if the guy who pioneered the whole department picked her to be on his team—that was good with me. So I made an appointment to meet with her… I think the best thing that I can say is that she’s a burst of light. Disarming in her approach: all smiles, totally present, amazingly open. In my first meeting with her she was thorough in her examination and thoughtful about her recommendation. She explained things again and again. She answered my questions, even the dumb ones. It’s a lot of information that can be daunting. Obviously you’re not going to hear it all once and I think she knows that. So she said it all again. And again. After I left, I felt uncomfortable about her recommendation and asked for another consultation. She not only encouraged me to come back in and helped me arrange an appointment, but greeted me like we were old friends. She said all the right things—that I had every right to question the procedure, that she’d remove only half my thyroid if I really wanted her to even though she recommended a total thyroidectomy (and explained all the possible repercussions of each), that she was particularly anal about scars and how to hide them… While friendly and compassionate, she still managed to be confident and forthright. And I felt not just at ease with her, but damn lucky to have found her. And so I opted to go with the total thyroidectomy because she felt so strongly about it. The surgery went a bit longer than expected because, as she explained bedside, “that thing was huge!” holding her hands to form the shape of an oblong grapefruit. But I was awake and alert after surgery, I was drinking liquids soon thereafter, I was texting my friends and family like a teenager in detention, I was up and shuffling like a geriatric patient to the recovery room bathroom, and I was free to go home after the 6-hour monitoring period. I had about three days of feeling like I’d been hit by a truck as the anesthesia worked its way out of my system. I did a light yoga class a week after surgery. I went for a 2-mile run on the beach at the 10-day mark, and by 2 weeks it all felt like yesterday’s news… Perhaps it seems like all this was nothing. I’ve neglected to mention the long nights of questioning and concern leading up to the surgery—particularly how much I struggled with removing a vital gland and being tied to a little pink pill for the rest of my life (no side effects or not). I’ll save the spiritual conundrums for the longer version of the story I tell my friends—what the throat chakra is all about and that I painted my toenails blue because it was the only thing I could take with me into surgery. This wasn’t easy. I feel too young to have gone through this. Certainly far too healthy. I didn’t sleep a lot. I did more than cry, I bawled in the most slobbering, can’t-catch-my-breath sense of the word. But the surgery itself and the recovery after was nothing in comparison. The little pink pill even ain’t so bad. And everything about Dr. Harari made me feel like all of it was necessary, it was perfect, and that I was safe in her capable, compassionate, tender hands.