I've had thyroid cancer and I can give a certain amount of reassurance.

Firstly, be very careful of googling. There is a lot of inaccurate information online. I googled the whole thing a lot and found completely contradictory information. Anything that says it's "probably cancer," I'd be wary of. I don't actually know what the odds are, but I doubt they could say that with any degree of certainty.

Thyroid nodules are extremely common. I think something like 25% or 40% of the population will develop one and many are found incidentally when scanning for something else, as yours was. It's also not uncommon to have swollen lymph nodes as something like an infection could do that, so I really doubt it's anywhere close to certain that you have thyroid cancer.

And finally, even if you do, it probably isn't how you are imagining. The most common forms of thyroid cancer have a really high survival rate, so high that calling it a "survival rate" sounds kind ridiculous. I am talking something like over 99% among under 50s (and it's high for over 50s too, just not quite as high and I haven't paid as much attention to that as I'm not in that category). It also rarely requires ongoing treatment like chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Normally, they remove your thyroid and that is more or less that. If they think you are at higher risk for recurrence, they will do radioiodine treatment, but that is just a nuisance as you have to isolate afterwards because you are radioactive, but it's not painful or something that makes you sick or anything.

My experience went like this. I was diagnosed in November 2019. I had my operation on the 6th of January 2020. It was a larger than normal operation as the nodule was very large and they also removed all the lymph nodes on one side of my neck.

I took a month off work and was back at work and back to normal life really by early February. My voice did get weak if I used it too much and I still get some tingling in my neck, but nothing serious. 

I also have to take medication to do the job my thyroid used to, but that is just swallowing two pills each morning.

I was supposed to get radioiodine treatment in March or April, but covid set in and it ended up being done at the end of May. This was somewhat irritating as I had to go on a low iodine diet for two weeks before it and then there were restrictions on me for two weeks afterwards, but that was all. The treatment itself was just swallowing a capsule. I did get a nosebleed a week and a half afterwards but that was it for effects.