wow

Hmmm, this has definitely been a most interesting past week. Most of you probably know by know that I have been diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer. Last Friday, we received the results of a biopsy of a nodule on my thyroid. The report came back "suspicous for papillary thyroid cancer". My doctor says that it's 95% certain to be this cancer when the entire nodule is taken out of my thyroid. They recommend taking my entire thyroid out and placing me on thyroid supplements for the rest of my life. Of the 4 different types of thyroid cancer out there, this is the "best" one to get - it's very treatable and curable. Since you may wonder how this all came about, I thought I'd share the events that lead up to this diagnosis....


In May, I had been having terrible dizziness and vertigo. I was worried something in my ears might be affecting me, so I had a routine check up with an ENT doctor. Everything turned out perfectly fine at that visit, but during the routine exam, the doctor noticed a small bumb on my thyroid when I swallowed. He said to get it checked out with my regular doctor. So off I went to my doctor who ordered an ultrasound of my thyroid. Meanwhile, my dizziness worked itself out and I feel much better. I have the ultrasound, have the followup appt, where my doc recommends me to see another doctor, the "thyroid guru" of the clinic. She said I'd probably get a biopsy because one nodule is larger than 1cm. This is all normal procedure, and I'm not too concerned. Fast forward to my biopsy, which was last Tuesday. Everything went fine. It felt a little wierd and I was a little nervous at first, but it was painless and over in no time. They took 4 samples of my nodule and said the results come back in about 5 days.

Thursday afternoon the doctor's office calls and wants to know if I can come in tomorrow. Okay, I think. I ask the nurse if she can tell me the results over the phone, and she looks and then tells me she can't. I have a pit in my stomach at this point. I know it can't be good when they want to see me so soon and they can't share the results over the phone. Still, I know there are 4 different results that can come back from a biopsy: begnign, malignant, indeterminant, or insufficient. So, all Thursday night and Friday I replay the phone conversation in my head and come up with a zillion different possiblities of what the results could be. Needless to say, I didn't get much done Friday.

Eric was able to come with me to the appt., and I'm very thankful he did. On the way there, we talked about what we would do if it was bad news and such. I kept trying to tell myself it wasn't going to be very bad, but I had a really bad feeling about it all. Still nothing gets you ready for hearing your doctor tell you it looks like cancer.

So, we're sitting in the office, and the doctor starts talking crazy fast. I hear her say that it's suspicious for cancer and we'll need to do surgery. She doesn't come right out and say, you have cancer, but that's the general drift of the conversation. I try to take in all the details she tells us of all the treatment options, but soon I'm just overwhelmed. She goes out to grab a brochure and Eric and I just look at each other. We can't really believe it really has come to this.

The doctor does tell us that this is very treatable and curable, for which I'm thankful to hear, but it's all still trying to sink in at this point. Mister K was getting antsy, so Eric took him out to the waiting room. I asked the nurse if the doctor could come back in, because it felt like our conversation had gone too quickly. She wasn't just going to usher me out the door already, was she? I asked her if I was going to be okay, and I started balling.

The drive home sucked. I'll be honest. It felt like a 100 pound weight was just put on my lap. I dreaded the thought of surgery, being without a thyroid for about a month, the side effects of that, making all the doctor appoinments and finding babysitters, etc.

We picked up Miss M and went home. I didn't want to get out of the car at first. I didn't want to do on with my day. I wanted to just sit somewhere quiet for an hour or two. Then I felt really lonely and wanted to be around people. My emotions were bouncing around all over the place. I dreaded calling my family, because I didn't want them to be sad or worry.

Even during this, I felt very optimistic. I decided I was going to do what I needed to do and move on. We'll have surgery, we do the treatment and take care of it. That's all we need to think about. Meanwhile, my kids still need to be fed, changed and loved. So, I started dinner. The kids and I ate while hubby was out feeding his last load. Nothing much stops when you live on a farm. The cows surely don't know any different, they still have to be fed.

So, today is Sunday, and I've known about this for about 48 hours total. I know a whole heck of alot more about my thyroid than I ever imagined, and I'm looking towards my next appt. on Wednesday with the surgeon. I did call my doctor today, as she was on call and said I could call, and got a few more questions answered. I'll learn much more about which direction we should go when I talk with the surgeon. Right now, we need to decide whether to take the whole thyroid out or just the nodules. Obviously, if you take the entire thyroid out, you need thyroid hormone replacement for the rest of your life. That is very possible and doable. If you leave any part of the thyroid intact, you may possible have a reoccurence later in life. This type of thyroid cancer tends to show up in more than one spot, so that is possible.

It's been strange, because I don't really feel like I have "cancer" per say. I feel like I have a disease that's taking over my thyroid and we just need to get it removed. When I dwell too much on the word cancer, I freak out and that's not good.

I'm excited to see what lessons the Lord is going to teach me through this. I think He really wants me to stop dwelling on the trivial things in life and stop worrying about how I look. Since for awhile, I may lose total control of what's going on with my body, this will most assuredly be a lesson for me to learn. I've also already learned of so many people that have gone through this! I can't believe how common it is! It's comforting and very amazing to see so many of you reach out already to us. We'll have some rough times through this process, no doubt about that, but if we cling tight to the promises the Lord as given us, we can weather this storm.

I'll keep this updated as decisions are made and more happens:)
Thanks, T and family