Thyroid Cancer

A doozy of a week.

Here’s this week’s drawing. Thyroids are shaped like butterflies so here’s a lumpy butterfly.

This is obviously not the turn I expected this newsletter to take, but here we are. I feel like I have invited you on a roller coaster and may as well see you through until the end of this little ride.

Just to catch you up, a month ago I went to my primary care doctor for a routine visit and while my doctor was feeling my neck she found a lump at the front of my throat. She said I should get it checked out. I didn’t even know it was there. It was maybe nickle sized and didn’t hurt. I was nervous, but was assured by several friends that they had experienced similar things and were fine. I then hopped on the conveyer belt of care, got covid, worried about that for a while, waited to get over covid to go to my ultrasound appointment. I went to the ultrasound appointment and they confirmed that I had a lump and also that my lymph nodes were little rocks. More folks reassured me and I attributed the state of my lymph nodes to recently getting over covid. I was told I needed a biopsy, made the appointment, waited, thought more about the lump. I had the biopsy last week, Jason went with me, and I really just wasn’t prepared for them to tell me it was cancer. They checked one lymph node first and confirmed that there were thyroid cells that had migrated to my lymph node. At this I started to cry, I knew it was not good news. They brought back Jason to me with tears in my eyes and told them what they had found. It was an emotional day! But then there was good news. Thyroid cancer has excellent treatment success rates and is typically just treated with surgery, removing part or all of your thyroid and potentially the lymph nodes. Who knew?! I didn’t. So then I waited for the official results which confirmed it was papillary thyroid carcinoma, the friendlier brand of thyroid cancer.

And now here we are. I have to wait 2 weeks for a visit with the surgeon at Jefferson’s thyroid center for them to assess my situation and make a plan for treatment. I am feeling super thankful to live in a big city with a health care system massive enough to have a thyroid center. Everyone along the way has assured me that I am in very good hands, and you know what? I believe them. So I’m just riding the conveyer belt making appointments and showing up and then trusting the medical professionals to do what they do.

The day of the biopsy was very emotional, but now I’m feeling a bit numb except for those late night mind spirals where all your worst case scenerio thoughts swirl around in your brain. My logical concerns are things like medical bills and thyroid replacent hormones and then I have all the hopefully far fetched concerns of surgery gone awry.

But I also have so many things I am thankful for like my primary care doctor finding the lump. I am thankful for having margin in my life so I can have time and mental space to address my health. I am thankful for Jason and Elliott. I am thankful that when I told some of my closest friends that their response was deep empathy followed by questions about how I was doing and concluded with the suggestion that we go thrifting and to lunch, two of my most favorite things, to focus on something fun and then spill my guts about all the feelings I’ve been feeling. They are gems. I am blessed.

In conclusion, if you haven’t seen your primary care doctor in a while please go. If you don’t like your primary care doctor please find a new one. I am so glad I have a doctor that makes me feel heard, not rushed, and I feel like I can tell her or ask her anything without fear of judgement. If one of your friends gets a weird diagnosis tell them “that sucks I’m so sorry, let’s go do one of your favorite things and then we’ll spend the rest of our time just listening to you.”

That’s all I think. Thanks for letting me spill my guts. Thanks for being here. I am so glad you’re on this ride with me.