It sounds extreme,
really, but it’s kind of the truth.
Anyone who knows me
knows that I don’t complain about much, I like to keep my personal
stuff to myself, I don’t like to be a burden on anyone. That said,
pretty much everyone I’m close to comes to me for advice, to
complain about their crap, for a shoulder to cry on, etc. I don’t
know why everyone thinks I can fix everything, but they do, and I
don’t mind being a needed presence or to give advice when
necessary.
Along with that, I
am also not one to go to the doctor. I’m not anti-doctor by any
means, I’m just rarely sick and I don’t feel it’s necessary to
go often. So, rewind to last May/June(ish), I’m about four months
pregnant and at my OB for the usual preggo stuff. Up to this point,
we know my thyroid is out of whack and I’d already started
medication to try and level it out so that everything is good for the
cooking munchkin. Doc says that there seems to me a nodule on my
thyroid and that I should get an ultrasound and see a specialist. I
do both. Specialist says, yeah, there’s a nodule, but don’t worry
about it til after the baby is born.
Fast-forward to
December, two months post-baby, I go in again to see the specialist,
he recommends a biopsy of aforementioned nodule to see what it’s
made of, make sure it’s not anything bad. I do the biopsy, it comes
back suspicious. Yes, that
kind of suspicious. The all caps, very serious, incredibly scary six
letter “C” word.
It’s
okay, you can mull it over in your head, whatever you need to do
before continuing to read this.
I,
personally, wasn’t really thinking at all at this point. It didn’t
hit me, really, that this could be happening to me, but I quickly
sucked it up and scheduled a surgery to remove the half of my thyroid
that had this “suspicious” nodule on it. I
wasn’t nervous, or worried, or upset, or really anything. I had
come to a place mentally where it was something that needed to
happen, regardless of my feelings, and I didn’t think that much of
it. It’s February, the
surgery goes as planned, I go back to work the next day, no big deal.
Waiting
for the “but, then”? Yeah...
But
then, the doc calls me with the results of the nodule they had
removed. It came back
positive for cancerous cells.
Yes,
this happened. Why didn’t you know about it? Remember what I said
at the beginning, about not wanting to burden other people? Yeah,
that’s why. I didn’t want sympathy, sad looks, people constantly asking me
if I’m okay. I don't like people thinking that I have problems, even if/when I do have said problems. Even though I knew that it was serious, that this was
a life-changing thing happening to me, I didn’t want to talk about
it to other people because most reactions to cancer are not ones I
wanted to deal with. I'm not broken and I don't want people treating me like I am.
When
my doc called me and told me that it was cancerous, I’m pretty sure
I went through all the stages of grief in a matter of a few hours. I
was shocked, really upset, scared,
mad, beyond mad. I was pissed off. Here I was, twenty-five years old
with cancer on my thyroid. Up until this point, I had resigned myself
to the fact that I’d have to live with half a thyroid. I could work
with that, take meds, change diet and lifestyle, I’d be okay. But
now, I was hit with the sudden, chilling realization that I was only
a quarter of the way through my life and would have no thyroid at
all. And once it’s gone, you can’t put it back.
Anyone
who really knows me knows I don’t get actually mad very easily.
Sure, I’ll be snippy or cranky, but actually really pissed off
takes me a heck of a long time to get to. After the phone call with
my doc telling me that I had to have another surgery because there
was CANCER in my body, I was so pissed off like I’d never been
before. It wasn’t fair! Why was this happening to me? Why couldn’t
I have a normal thyroid, a normal body, a normal life like so many
other people? I cried in anger, which turned to sadness, and then I
realized that I had to make a
decision.
I
made the conscious choice to not let this thing get the better of me.
So, yeah, maybe I didn’t/don’t appear to be taking this whole
situation as seriously as others do, but that’s because, if I dwell
on it, it brings me down and screws with my life even more than it
already has. And I wasn’t going to let that happen. When I say I
went through all the stages of
grief in a matter of hours,
I’m not kidding you. Within probably about four or five hours after
getting off the phone with my doc, I had cried my tears and my mind
was made up.
This
was reality (albeit a harsh one at best) and I had to face it head
on. I had a newborn, a husband, family, friends, a LIFE to live and
if I had to cut out my thyroid in order to maintain all of that
goodness, then dang it, that’s what needed to be done. The cancer
wouldn’t just go away. No amount of tears or anger or “it’s not
fair” would make the situation change. So, I sucked it up,
scheduled another surgery and dealt with it. I took Life’s lemons,
grabbed some tequila and salt and
a little ice and made some
margaritas!
Remember
how I mentioned at the
beginning that my pregnancy saved my life? I’m not joking. If I
hadn’t been pregnant, I wouldn’t have been at a doctor office,
wouldn’t have known about the nodule on my thyroid and wouldn’t
have gone through the whole ultrasound/biopsy process and wouldn’t
have known about the cancer. Who knows how long it might have been
before (or even IF) I ever would have found out about it. Also, we
don’t know how long it was there. They say thyroid cancer is the
“best” to have. Not that any are good, of course, but on a scale
of which ones are the
deadliest, thyroid is way on the bottom of that list. It takes a long
time to grow, a long time to cause any problems and rarely actually
harms anyone.
As
of now, I have another scar to add to my collection, but I know that
my body is clear of this mess. Yes, I have no thyroid now. Yes, I
have a scar on the front of my neck that everyone and their brother
stares at. Every. Single. Day. Do I care? Not really. I know my body
is healthier now. I have a better appreciation for the specialist doc
that I have. I had a huge, scary problem and I took care of it. I
consider myself incredibly lucky to have had the outcome that I did
with this. I would never want to minimize anyone else’s experience
with cancer. I am fully aware of how truly blessed I am to be where I
am and to have the clean bill of health that I do. Mine is a good
experience, all things considered. Now, I am moving on.
Things
can only get better from here.
