Maybe the Tides Have Turned??

I had two whole long miserable years of nothing but bad news. One thing after the next- it was all bad news all the time.

And since the beginning of the summer, we've been riding the wave of constant good news. I almost don't want to talk about it because I've spent a lot of time waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't have this much good news. It's like a totally foreign concept.

My list of goodness
1. J got a new job- and we got amazing IF coverage. Total game changer.
2. We really liked the new RE and decided to move forward with Natural Cycle IVF.
3. I was formally cleared by the Endocrinologist and was told there is absolutely no recurrence of my thyroid cancer.

And now #4- #4 is a good one. I got a new job! FINALLY! After seven full months of working in a call center- I got a new job. Oddly enough- I'm going back to work with the client that I worked with for 5 years before I was married. The contract is with a different company, but same idea and lots of the same people that I'll be working with. I got a raise, half the commute that I'm doing now, and a waaaay better work schedule. Amazing. It will change my life for the better in so many ways. Right now I get home around 7:15pm. J has to cook dinner every night or we would eat too late. And I have no time to do anything at night. And all that will vanish with this new job! It's very close to J's work (like 2 miles) so we can even carpool to work some days. I can go in early at like 6:30-7:00 and be home early too. AH-MAZ-ING. I don't have a start date quite yet- I'm just waiting for my security clearance to cross over and then I'll give my notice. I'm mentally preparing for that. Quitting when you work for a small company is not fun. They get super pissed off. But whatevs.

5. There are two houses in our neighborhood that are selling for what we would need to sell our house for to break even. That means we should be able to sell this house in the spring and peace outta here! We have only a very general idea of where we want to live so right now- the plan is to move in with my Mom (eeep!) for as long as we can tolerate- hopefully about a year- to save money and figure out where we really want to live. That could be a verrrrrrrrrry long year.

Do you believe in trends? Could this possibly continue? If it does- I really just need one more good thing. That's all I need. Please?

I'm done with the Roller Coaster

For real. I'm done. Up, Down, Up, Down...it's making me feel like I'm going to hurl.

Here's my latest news. This may be long, it's been a rough couple of days.

Thursday and Friday sent me back to the hospital for Thyroid testing. I was scheduled to have two injections of Thyrogen (synthetic thyroid hormone) one on Thursday and one on Friday. They are using Thyrogen to attempt to stimulate my thyroglobulin levels. Thyroglobulin is the marker in the blood work for cancer. Normally it is undetectable. So if you get Thyrogen, and your thyroglobulin levels rise- that is bad. If it stays undetectable, then we're in the clear. I was also set to have an ultrasound of my neck to look at my lymph nodes around my neck and my thyroid bed. 


Thursday:
Went and got my Thyrogen injection- no problem. Walked over to radiology for the ultrasound and my back starts hurting. Uh-oh. With my history of kidney stones I was getting nervous that I was having a stone. Remember this post?? The last time I had a stone was during my thyroid biopsy. How appropriate. Ugh. So they called me back and I'm waiting for the tech and the pain is getting worse and worse- and now I'm having trouble breathing through it. It's like someone is stabbing me in the back. Now I know it's a kidney stone and I know I have to get to the ER. Lucky for me that I'm at the hospital. Ha! To add to the frustration, my phone doesn't work in the hospital and it's about 1000 degrees outside. I'm sweating from the pain and have to go outside to try to get a hold of J. I head to the ER that is PACKED full of people. They are kind enough to get me back quickly and start an IV. Once the IV went in- the pain stopped. They did do a CT Scan to confirm it was a stone (which it was), but they said it was small and on it's way out. So they sent me home with pain meds and instructions to drink a lot. 


Friday:
Pretty sure I passed the stone early early Friday morning. No pain and no feeling it since then. Back to the hospital for Thyrogen shot #2 and rescheduled ultrasound. Got the shot- no big deal. Except Thyrogen makes you feel like dog shit. Glad to be done with it. I went back for the ultrasound and when the tech was finished she said to me "You have some nodes that need to be evaluated." WHAT? I have WHAT? That is pretty high on the list of things you DON'T EVER say to people who have had cancer. I proceed to cry the entire way home and by the time I got home, I'd convinced myself I had cancer again and I would never have a baby. Way to stay positive, Kathy! After crying and stewing about it for far too long, I decided to email my endocrinologist and just see if he could get the results any sooner. He emailed me back at 10:47 on a Friday night. He is amazing. Here is his email to me:

Your pre-thyrogen labs look great and the thyroglobulin is undetectable (just like we want it to be - this is the thyroid cancer marker).

I also have the sono result and the lymph nodes that are seen are benign appearing. We see stuff like this all the time. Nothing to lose sleep over.


He attached the ultrasound report and it says in the findings section: No sonographic evidence to suggest recurrence.NO RECURRENCE!!!
I wanted to make out with him. The relief was unreal. So at the end of the day- I am going to be fine. I don't have cancer anymore. Monday I go for follow up blood work from Thyrogen, but now I'm not worried about that. Phew. 

A Good Anniversary

1 year ago today I found out that I have Thyroid Cancer.

And today I AM CANCER FREE!!

Thyroid Cancer, you can SUCK A FAT ONE.

Cancer AGAIN?!? WTF?

Ok first of all- No- I don't have cancer again. I just thought for like 4 hours that I did. And let me tell you. That was THE LONGEST 4 HOURS EVER. I had a follow up with my endocrinologist this week. It was a totally anxiety free event for me- I'll go, he'll feel my neck, take some blood, and I'll be on my merry way.

So onto the neck feeling part. Usually he gives me a cup of water and I swallow and he feels. (Dirty, huh? ha ha) and normally he says "I can't feel anything. Everything feels normal.". Except this visit. At this visit he said "I think I feel something enlarged."

Just sayin, but ENLARGED is like the worst word ever to hear from the person who diagnosed you with cancer. :::cue panic:::

Per my normal process, as soon as he said the word ENLARGED, I went to the worst possible place. In my head I was having surgery again and we would never have a baby. In reality, he sent me to radiology for an ultrasound of my neck. I was fit into the schedule which meant nothing but lots of waiting and time spent thinking about my upcoming fake surgery and my lack of offspring. So while I sat stewing in a total panic, it turned out that it was all for nothing.

I do have a enlarged lymph node in my neck, but it's not big enough to be scary and you can have enlarged lymph nodes for about a billion reasons. :::deep deep breaths:::

Cancer seriously fucking sucks.

Hello September!

September is here! Bye Bye Summer! Time is moving quickly. Not so sure if that is good or bad, really.

September is Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month!!

So what does that mean, hmmm?? It means you should take a few minutes and learn about your thyroid. Next time you go for a physical- ask your doctor to feel your neck. They can sometimes feel any abnormal lumps or bumps on your thyroid just through a short painless physical exam of your neck. If you have a known thyroid condition- GO TO AN ENDOCRINOLOGIST. DO NOT have it monitored by a family doctor, OB/GYN, or any other doctor. You need to see a specialist!!

When you see someone with a scar on their throat or neck- do them a favor- Quit staring at it. They already know it's there.

You can learn more about Thyroid Cancer Awareness by going here: http://www.thyca.org/.

Best.News.Ever.

I AM CANCER FREE!!!

I went to the Endo today and he doth proclaim it that I am CANCER FREE!! I have a 99.6% chance that the cancer will never come back. Thems pretty good odds. YAHOO!! It's really the best news I've had in a long, long while. And any good news is welcome in this camp.

So here's the plan- I go back in 6 months for a follow up with blood work and a physical exam of my neck- just to make sure there are no lumps or bumps. 6 months after that, I'll have a specific set of blood work done- thyrogen induced thyroglobulin blood test done. Thyroglobulin is the "cancer marker" in the thyroid bloodwork. It should be very, very, very low. And right now- it is. So in a year- they will give me thyrogen to try to spike it. If it stays like it is now- we're in the clear! I expect no surprises.

And now I can return to my non-cancer having life. I'll take my synthroid and forget that the last three months ever happened.

A Note from my Endo

Hi Kathy,

Good news. Looks like what they saw in the lungs was an artifact. When they switched you to a different camera, the uptake in the lung disappeared. They are confident there is no metastatic disease. And certainly with your stimulated thyroglobulin being <0.5, that would support there being no spread of cancer as well.

JW


Translation: NO MORE CANCER!!!!!!!!

Bad News Today

Today I went to the hospital for my post treatment scan. They repeated all the scans that they did the morning I was admitted. They do a whole body scan, a scan of the neck, and of the chest. They sent me back to the waiting room to prepare the films and make sure that they had everything they needed. The technician came out and told me that they needed to repeat the chest films. So we repeated the chest films and I went back to waiting.

The technician came out again, sat down next to me, and told me in a hushed voice that there was a "spot" on the chest scan and that I would need to come back again tomorrow for another scan. They want to be able to compare the scans from last week to the scans from today to the scans from tomorrow and determine what the spot is.

I don't really know what that means. I just know that I'm scared. I'm scared that tomorrow I will find out that the spot is more cancer. J is still out of town so I will be going to the scan alone. I hope I won't have to get more bad news while I'm there alone.

New Car and a Call Out

A strange combo, huh?
We bought a new car today- a 2011 Honda Insight. This one's not mine, but it looks like this:

It's a hybrid and gets about 40 miles to the gallon. Compared to the 17 that I get now- it will almost pay for itself in the gas savings alone. It's cute and I like it.

So Car Sales Guy sold us our Pilot also (we're turning into Honda whores). So we're waiting- always a lot of waiting when you buy a car- and he says to me "Is that scar on your neck new?" Um, yes. I have cancer. Thanks for bringing it up. Appreciate that. We keep talking- idle chit chat and he wants to know why we have no kids. Um, yes. Infertile. Again- thanks for bringing it up.

Seriously- I can't escape this shit. My one small victory of the night was learning that my credit score is 4 points higher than my husband's. I could tell that it bothered him and I kind of loved it.

PS- Low Iodine Egg Salad, while green and odd looking- tastes ok.

Bye Bye Neck

So sorry about the up the nose shots...but I just wanted to document my pre-surgical neck. Tomorrow it will have a yucky scar. I'm starting to have anxiety about the scar. Will people stare at it? Will it be red and ugly for a long time? I don't want to walk around with this reminder of this bad thing all the time. I guess I just don't want to have cancer.

Tomorrow at this time, I'll be in surgery. We have to leave the house at 4am to get to the hospital. I'm not afraid of the surgery, just afraid of the aftermath.

Cross your fingers for me.

More Awesome News

Spoke to the surgeon today. Turns out I have 7 enlarged lymph nodes in my neck near my jugular vein. Dr. C (surgeon) says "they may or may not be cancerous". You mean just like when they told me that I may or may not have thyroid cancer? She says they are too far away from the thyroid to address in this surgery and there are too many of them to biopsy. She says that Dr. W (new super endo) agrees with her.

So what does this mean? It means that 6 weeks after surgery I'll have an uptake scan to see if the nodes are cancer. If they aren't- super mega awesome- no big whoop. If they are cancer- then I'm headed back to the operating room for a much more invasive surgery called a Neck Dissection. (Which, ps- only reminds me of AP Biology and fetal pigs) I'm not afraid of thyroid surgery. It's pretty low risk in the grand scheme of things. But Neck Dissection?? No thank you.

I've been handed a pretty rough deal the last few weeks. If I could ever ask for a break, it would be here. I really don't want this cancer to have spread. Please. Just this one thing.

Where's my Chance?

So a little update.

I met with the surgeon and a new endocrinologist that specializes in Endocrine Oncology at Washington Hospital Center. The good news- surgery is scheduled for Friday, April 8th. The surgeon was kind enough to explain all the risks including potentially losing my voice for a while or not being able to yell ever again. All in all, not bad. I'll be in the hospital overnight and out of work the entire following week. The not so great news- new endo (who I really like, ps) thinks that I will need to have radiation iodine treatment. That current assumption is based on the size of the nodules and the fact that there are more than one. The final decision about whether or not I'll actually need to have that done is based on the pathology reports after surgery. The shitty news- radiation iodine treatment means IVF is off the table for a year after it is completed.

I feel like when you go through infertility- it takes away all the good parts of trying to have a baby. It becomes a job or a chore. It becomes this huge source of stress instead of this amazing thing you and your husband share. You put your body and your relationship and your finances through this huge thing and at the end of it- all you really get is a chance. And now it seems like the chance has been taken away too. I was already really having trouble dealing with the stress of IVF and all it brings with it, but now knowing that I'll have to sit back and wait is very hard and very sad. I don't want to spend the next year being sad every time someone I know has a baby or get pregnant. I don't want that to be my first reaction. And I'm not sure how to stop that quite yet.

So for now, I guess I just have to somehow try to see the good in this. I will be fine and I will survive having cancer. For now I just have to hope I'll get my chance one day.

And if you read all that- you get this:

2 week wait

I'm in the middle of a whole new two week wait. Two weeks from now I won't have a thyroid. Let's just get this freakin show on the road.

In a Funk.

People keep asking me how I'm doing. My answer- Just ok. That's about as good as it gets right now. Just ok. This week has really sucked and I'm in the middle of a week long pity party.
In my head, I know things will be alright. I know I won't die from thyroid cancer. But in my heart- I feel like the universe had royally fucked me over one time too many. One bad thing, I can understand. But really- why do I get what feels like *NOTHING* but bad things in my life? Infertility is so hard to deal with. I really had just come to terms with having to go through IVF and all of the really difficult issues that come along with that. One week before going on birth control and I find out I have cancer. CANCER. WTF? Seriously. My life is sucking right now.
SO what do you do when your life is sucking? You cry. A lot. During the day, I'm ok. I guess I'm just distracted by work. But at night- I'm a hot mess. My poor husband and I have been up late every night cause I can't hold my shit together. I've had this post saved for a while now. I've even thought about deleting it. But I decided to post it because I decided that I'm ALLOWED to not have my shit together for a little while. It won't be for the rest of eternity.
So whatever. I'm still just ok, but a little better than before.

Worst Period Ever

I got my period today. It's the period that I've been waiting to start for months. The only period I've been waiting to start. It was supposed to be the period that would start my first IVF cycle.

Instead of IVF, I'm starting treatment for thryoid cancer. ::sigh::

Tentative Plans

I went from having an amazing IVF nurse to have an amazing nurse at the new endo. VERY lucky.

My friend D hooked me up with a woman, Cyndi, at the new Endo's office. She has taken care of everything and now there is a plan!

I have an appointment with Dr. W (new endo who only take cancer patients) and the surgeon Dr. C on April 4th. (5 weeks earlier than they told me I could get in...awesomesauce) I have to have another ultrasound to make sure that the lymph nodes around my thyroid are all normal and don't need to come out as well.

I have a tentative surgery date of April 8th. In theory that means that this could all be over by the end of June! Not terrible. More waiting, but not terrible.

The #1 Reason I am still Sane

My e-Friends.

I'm an active poster on the message boards on TheBump.com. When my IRL friend MH introduced me to them, I thought the people were nuts. They spoke a whole other language and were meanys. And now I speak the language and flame the newbies. Along the way I've met some of the most amazing women. They started out just being internet friends- don't share too much- keep them on the internet. And now the place that I talk to them the least is the boards. They aren't really my e-Friends anymore. They are great friends. While everyone else around me this week has unknowingly forced me to manage how THEY feel about me having cancer, these friends have silently supported me. They have been patient yet concerned. I've been lurking on the boards and found the other day that in each one of their posts are these pictures:

Unreal. I could never replace them. Girls- you know who you are. Thank you. Thank you for being so supportive of me. It's the #1 Reason I am still sane.

Telling Others

I refuse to answer my phone today. What is even more exhausting than finding out you have cancer? Telling other people you have cancer. Because you get this:

The "Holy Shit you just said Cancer now what do I say" Blank Stare. And you even get that over the phone. It's more like an awkward silence, but the same idea. So I'm done for a while. No more telling. It's too exhausting.

Now I REALLY hate my endo.

I broke up with him this morning.

I went in for my follow up. I waited in the office for an hour before being seen. Now I understand that as far as cancers go- the kind I have isn't a deal breaker. I'm not going to die from the kind of cancer that I have. But it's still a scary thing. It's still overwhelming. So after my hour long wait, he spent a whopping 6 minutes with me. I tried to explain that my friend D had recommended a surgeon that I would like to go to. I was promptly scolded for "shopping for a doctor". He told me that he would ONLY refer me to the surgeon of his choice (about 90 minutes away from my house). He threw some pamphlets about cancer my way and told me not to come back until after I have surgery.

Don't come back? Check. Done.

Good Resources

I'm sad to say that I have an excellent resource on Thyroid Cancer. A good friend of my husband's who I have adopted as my friend- D - went through treatment for Follicular Thyroid Cancer (an even scarier kind than what I have...) about 2 years ago. She's now cancer free (yeah!).

She has quickly turned into my best resource. She came over today with cupcakes and phone numbers for a good surgeon and an endocrinologist. She called her nurse and she was willing to expedite everything for me. I want to get things figured out. I hate not knowing what is going on or what I'm supposed to do.

D is the greatest resource I have right now. I am sad that we now share this experience, but I am so thankful to have her.