Thyroid cancer? No way. I know that I haven't had the best relationship with my thyroid over the years and we haven't gotten along well for ages, but cancer? Sigh.
I suppose I should put some context with this.
I can pinpoint issues with my challenged thyroid back to high school. So many mornings sleeping in until the last possible minute, running out of the house late without a decent breakfast, family vacations where my hyperthyroid mother would torture hypothyroid me at 7am singing to wake me up....family joke that I wasn't a morning person. Ha.
By college someone finally mentioned that I might have thyroid issues, but no one diagnosed it until I was 30. Oh the bliss of having meds that worked and made me feel mostly human! I love Dr. N who was the one who figured it all out and saved my life with levoxyl. However, the thyroid still didn't work well, and I could usually tell when it was functioning or not. The need for 3 sweaters, extra moisturizer, a broom to constantly sweep up all the hair that had fallen out, extra hours of sleep that didn't seem to matter, the realization that my weight was increasing again...I loved the days I felt good, and dreaded the days I felt the fatigue coming on. Oh the havoc that this little gland can wreak.
After my mom passed away in Oct. 08, Dr. N noticed that my thyroid seemed swollen much more than usual. She increased the meds and kept an eye on it until January of this year. She sent me for an ultrasound. No biggie I thought. Then told me that there were two nodules. Ok, 95% of them are benign, right? No biggie. Then she said I needed to have a biopsy. That caught my attention--biopsy and cancer seem to always to go together, like peanut butter and jelly, coffee and cream, you get the idea.
Two weeks after the appointment, I find myself on a table staring up at the ceiling as a doctor sticks a number of giant needles in my neck. Ow. It only took a few minutes, but it felt like ages. Then it's over, and the tech says it will take about a week to get the results. That was on a Thursday.
Mr. Wonderful and I went out for dinner a few days later, on a Saturday, and on the way home I realized that my cell phone was ringing. Private name, Private number. I have a chilling feeling that it's Dr. N. Why would she be calling me on my cell on a Saturday night? It is Dr. N. As I'm sitting in my car out in front of my house, she says, "I can't believe I'm telling you this. You have papillary thyroid cancer." I think I stopped breathing as Mr. Wonderful is trying to figure out what the hell I'm hearing. Dr. N keeps talking, telling me to contact a surgeon ASAP.
To quote my sister, I never really have to wait for the other shoe to drop since it just keeps raining shoes.
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