I take it back, I DO have cancer.

It took me a bit to recover from my last post. I have so much I want to say about my birth experience but that will have to wait for another day. I guess I am not ready to completely relive those memories.



Moving on.

2 weeks after giving birth I went to meet with my surgeon. Another ultrasound was performed with the same conclusion. surgery was imminent. A biopsy was not performed because it would not affect the final decision,it would have to be removed. The plan was to remove only the right half of my thyroid, this would enable my body to continue to produce hormones from the remaining left side.

I was ensured that I had an 85% chance that this would not be cancer. The surgeon would remove the right side, send it off to the lab to be frozen and biopsied while I was still under anesthesia and if it was cancerous he would remove the left side as well.



January 12th was my surgery. I had to be there at 5:30 in the morning so I kissed my boys goodbye, sure that this was the last time I would ever see them, I was positive I wasn't going to make it through surgery.



I was prepped and given some good medications, I kissed my mom and my best friend good bye and was rolled off to the operating room. The next thing I knew I was in the recovery room surrounded by my husband, my mom and my best friend. "Do I have cancer" I asked? and I was so happy to hear them say "no". What a huge weight off of my shoulders.

I spent the night in the hospital in a pain med induced stupor. I facebooked to all of my friends that I was "cancer free.. yay me!" and was released the following day. Recovery was miserable. There really is no way to explain how it feels to have your throat cut open and have an organ removed (I'm envisioning the surgeon standing on my chest yanking with all his might) other than to say it was miserable. I did get a good nights sleep my first night home (thank you sleeping pills) and was woken in the morning by my husband who wanted me to take a phone call... It was my surgeon.

He had a pathology result in front of him that said, with further testing, My results came back as follicular thyroid cancer and they would need me back to remove the other side. I am one of the 2 patients a year that he sees this happen to . lucky me. The last thing I want to do is relive this nightmare, I felt like I had already beaten the odds just surviving the initial surgery (yes, I know I am being overly dramatic, that's who I am.) And now I had to do it again? Yes, in 2 weeks. So I did. and I survived. second verse same as the first. It was miserable.

That gets me back up to where I am now. I had an appointment with a endocrine oncologist named Dr. Carey. She met with me and gave me ALOT of information about this disease, its treatment and prognosis. Over the period of an hour and a half I was told just about everything I need to know and I was sent home. I have to begin a low-iodine diet to prepare for a treatment of radioactive iodine. This radioactive iodine will go into my body and seek out any remaining thyroid tissue and kill it. This is also how we will see if and/or where the cancer may have spread. The prognosis and treatment are great, there is a 95% cure rate, which really says nothing to me considering the odds I have beaten in the last few months. More waiting. and starving :).

Follicular thyroid cancer:
*Peak onset ages 40 through 60 (I am 30)
*Females more common than males by 3 to 1 ratio
*Prognosis directly related to tumor size [less than 1.0 cm (3/8 inch) good prognosis] *(my tumor was 3.7cm)
*Rarely associated with radiation exposure
*Spread to lymph nodes is uncommon (~10%)
*Invasion into vascular structures (veins and arteries) within the thyroid gland is common (*this hashappened with me, we are not sure yet how extensive the invasion is)
*Distant spread (to lungs or bones) is uncommon, but more common than with papillary cancer
*Overall cure rate high (near 95% for small lesions in young patients), decreases with advanced age