The Plan

First, I want to thank all my friends for your support.  It has been amazing, and I really appreciate it.  Second, I want to thank thyroid cancer for being so manageable.  I appreciate that even more.  Dave and I headed up to UCSF on Friday for "the meeting" with the guru of thyroid cancer.  We met first with one of the Fellows, who started the appointment by saying, "no one dies of thyroid cancer."  Those were great words to hear, even though I had been assured of that by many you.  To hear it from the guy with the white coat was a great relief both to me and Dave.  We then went on and discussed the process of dealing with it before meeting with Dr. Clark, the main man.  First things first, I need to get the nodule taken out.  Then I meet with the endocronologist.  The endocronologist is the one who decides on your iodine radiation treatment and you see him one month after surgery.  Dr. Clark then came in to meet me.  While I was already told that my nodule was considered relatively small, Dr. Clark spotted it from about 6 feet away.  Nice.  And for some reason, women under 45 fair better with the thyroid cancer and the surgery than women 45 and over.  Uhhhh, guess who turns 45 next month?  Geez!  I told Dr. Clark of my upcoming birthday and he assured me that I would get it taken out before my birthday, but not on my birthday, and most likely on a Thursday, but maybe on a Wednesday.  Then he said the scheduler will come in to set the date.  I was so happy.  I though, wow, I am going to have a date set by the time I leave here.  Wrong.  They sent in the nurse instead, who then informed us that the scheduler was way to busy because all of the docs were in the office.  Figures.  We are to wait until we get a letter in the mail with the date.  Well, as you know, I don't "wait" very well.  I will be calling the scheduler on Monday to see what I can secure sooner rather than later.  I only have about 45 days before I end up in the "fair not as well" group, for goodness sakes, and I will make sure she knows this one fact. 

The good news is that it sounds like the surgery will be quite straight forward.  They will remove the whole thyroid.  They will keep me overnight, to make sure there isn't any bleeding as a result of the surgery, and then they will send me on my way.  And many people resume normal activity within a day or two with just a sore throat to contend with.  I can handle that.  I will then have to take a supplement for the rest of my life and have my thyroid levels checked forever.  The hope is to have my levels be at zero always.  If the thyroid level goes up, than that means there is some more tissue somewhere growing, which is not a good thing. And this is all managed through blood tests.  So really, this all does not seem so daunting after all.  How lucky am I?  I had a friend tell me today that someone once told her, you never want to be special when it comes to medical issues.  How right is that?  I am happy to be just another thryoid cancer case and that is what I am banking on.  So I feel very positive and am sleeping well these days.  Now, if I could only get over the laryngitis I came down with this week, all would be good. 

Once again, I want to thank you all.  I appreciate the support and it is so helpful to know you are there for me.  I will keep you posted as to when I get to go in and get this baby taken out.  And my lesson for the day is - be persistant and you will get what you want.  Ultimately, persistance beats resistance!   Have a great night!! xoxo