About 6 years ago my OB's nurse practitioner thought my thyroid was enlarged, it was not, (we found out after an ultrasound), but there was a gray spot that they did find. I was supposed to have ultrasounds retaken every 6 months to watch it. The last one I had was about 3 1/2 years ago when I was pregnant with my last child. My levels were always a little off when I was pregnant.
A few months ago I noticed something started to twinge when I turned my head a certain way. Last spring I had a horrible migraine one day. I used to get them when I was 14 and 15, they were very hormone related for me. I would vomit and wanted to die. As an adult, I would only get them a couple times a year and usually one while I was pregnant. The one I had last year was so bad my speak was slurred and I could think of words or say the right ones. My OB sent me in for a head scan but nothing was found.
In October, my daughter and I were flying to Texas to see Taylor Swift with my sister. The day we were to fly out, a migraine hit. I threw up while my dad drove us to the airport. The next day, we were getting ready to go out, when another one hit. That has never happened to me before. Later that month, I woke up from a dead sleep with another one, and I had a light one the next day again. I knew that my hormones were crazy for some reason.
I was also feeling that object in my neck more often. So I had an ultrasound done again.
The ultrasound came back with a 1.2cm nodule. I was sent to an ENT who sent me back to radiology to do a Fine Needle Aspiration with an ultrasound. Both the ENT and the Radiology Tech assured me that 99.5% of these were nothing. While waiting for the FNA the tech told me it looked good and she was quite sure it was nothing. When the doctor came in, he told me I had options, one of which was to get up and leave and just keep an eye on it, because he wasn't really worried. I, however, knew something was wrong, and even though I felt like a hypochondriac, I told them to go ahead and do the FNA, since I have a lot of kids and didn't have time to worry about this anymore. They gave me a deadening shot, then a bigger shot of novacaine into the thyroid. Then they put 4 needles into the thyroid and moved them up and down over and over to gather cells from the nodule. The first two didn't hurt, but the last two went to the far side where the novacaine didn't reach. I watched the needle go in and move around on the ultrasound. It was......cool? Gross?
Sometimes it felt like my thyroid was functioning, then I would get tunnel vision or I couldn't focus on busy environments like store Christmas displays. I have only experienced anything similar when I have had a migraine. But in these situations, I didn't get spotty or wavy vision, I just felt something functioning where my thyroid was supposed to be, then this would happen to my eyes or mind.
When the ENT PA called, he told me the results come back on a scale of 1-4. 1 is absolutely positive for cancer, 4 is absolutely negative, and 2 or 3 could go either way. My cells came back a 1.
He told me he was sorry to tell me I had Papillary Thyroid Cancer. He told me I would have a total thyroidectomy. He told me I would take thyroid pills from now on. And he told me a was very curable and that the only thing risk really involved was to my vocal chords, which I wouldn't notice unless I was a singer. Which I think I am.
I met with him and the ENT the next day. I never cried, even on the phone, until he drew my vocal chord nerves under my thyroid when he was showing me what they would do in surgery. He scoped my vocal chords down my nose, which hurt and bled because I must have small nasal passages or something. He found a nodule there that they say I have to try to get rid of with vocal therapy.
I asked a lot of questions at that meeting, left pretty confused still, but feeling really good about my doctor. They scheduled my surgery for two weeks later.
There has been a lot of God in this experience. Since I got the ultrasound FNA done, I have never felt that object it my neck again. I think maybe He was just trying to let me know something was wrong there. I also think it was a miracle that my OB nurse practitioner thought my thyroid was enlarged all those years ago, or we would have never had the first ultrasound and known to watch that gray spot.
I have also felt peace from the beginning. I knew something was wrong, but I also knew it was going to be ok. I was not surprised when the doctor called and told me. In fact, I would have been surprised if he told me nothing was wrong. The Spirit had prepared me and he was comforting me.
Once the surgery was scheduled, I was never nervous or scared. In fact, I felt so peaceful, I was joyful. The day before and the day of, everyone kept asking if I was scared of being cut or of the anesthesia, and I really never was. Even on the hospital bed before I went in.
My testimony of the power of prayer is colossal right now. I have been prayed for and fasted for by so many people, my burden was made as light as a.......piece of popcorn. I wish I could forward those prayers on to people with burdens around me that are so much greater than mine. If everyone knew how much power we have together, we could change the world, I think.
1/9/12
I still feel great. My incision is healing nicely. It has quite a bit of scar tissue still but the bumpiness is a little better and the redness is calming down. I go to the endocrinologist on the 11th to talk about radioactive iodine and I'm going to see if there is a way to avoid it. Radiation gave me the cancer in the first place and I don't want any more, but I'll do whatever we decide. My ENT says it is controversial right now but he would do it since there was another small cancer spot starting to grow that they found from the pathology. I'm just going to throw out big words like "Pathology" now and then so I sound medically informed and a little cool. They may be used in the wrong context, I'm hoping you don't know.
The effects of not having a thyroid haven't been that bad. A few days after having the thyroidectomy, the extensions of my mammary glands (that means nipples, I don't really want to talk about this, but if someone is going through this also and finds my blog I want to give support and couldn't find much about it online), anyway, they hurt for a while but it went away.
One day I forgot to take my thyroid pill and the next day I was a wreck. My whole body ached and I was an emotional mess. I wonder how many mental issues and depression are caused by an under active thyroid. I laid in bed and cried and was crazy and hurt all day.
I have some slighter mood swings now and then. I'll just feel like crying. I think before I had the thyroid out I was feeling symptoms of imbalance and was little crazy then also. I would flip out on the kids so quickly. I was also more aggressive and sometimes felt like I was running over people more than usual (I'm probably a little bossy by nature, I mean, I am bossy).
Ok, that's all for now. Except for sometimes I am really hungry too. So bring me some food. Cause I'll eat it. But no onions. And I am so tired, but sometimes I am not tired and feel better than I did before. Yah, I'm all over the place.
This was a couple hours after surgery. There were little spots all around the incision, even to my shoulders where I am guessing they had tacked the skin back or something for surgery.
Two Days after surgery.
10 days after surgery. When I took the tape off, most of that was just dried blood. The skin was really tender and red underneath. I took it off at two weeks.
Two Weeks after surgery. It was really bumpy. There was also a string sticking out from the inside stitches. The doctor had to pull on it and cut it and it was not fun. It feels almost like there is a long piece of cartilage running the length of the incision.
3+ Weeks after Surgery, today. You can't tell from this picture, but it sticks out little, I am told it is still swollen and that it will go down. It also still feels like the scar tissue or whatever is cartilage.
PS. My dad also had papillary thyroid cancer a couple years ago. It is not hereditary. I stayed with him at the hospital until 12:30 last night because he stopped taking his thyroid pills. Don't do that. I don't know what else it does, but it makes us hurt and act a little crazy. He has been there two nights and I think should stay longer, but he doesn't want to. He just had back surgery a month ago also. He has terrible pain in his legs and is forgetting things but no one can tell us why.
6/18/12
Well, I haven't written for a long time. It has been a crazy 6 months. I just read my last thyroid post where it says,
"One day I forgot to take my thyroid pill and the next day I was a wreck. My whole body ached and I was an emotional mess. I wonder how many mental issues and depression are caused by an under active thyroid. I laid in bed and cried and was crazy and hurt all day.
6/18/12
Well, I haven't written for a long time. It has been a crazy 6 months. I just read my last thyroid post where it says,
"One day I forgot to take my thyroid pill and the next day I was a wreck. My whole body ached and I was an emotional mess. I wonder how many mental issues and depression are caused by an under active thyroid. I laid in bed and cried and was crazy and hurt all day.
I have some slighter mood swings now and then. I'll just feel like crying. I think before I had the thyroid out I was feeling symptoms of imbalance and was little crazy then also. I would flip out on the kids so quickly. I was also more aggressive and sometimes felt like I was running over people more than usual (I'm probably a little bossy by nature, I mean, I am bossy).
Ok, that's all for now. Except for sometimes I am really hungry too. So bring me some food. Cause I'll eat it. But no onions. And I am so tired, but sometimes I am not tired and feel better than I did before. Yah, I'm all over the place."
That is pretty much how the last 6 months has been like for me. I have a lot of days that are fine and I feel normal, then it all goes to hell in a hand-basket.
My poor family. I do a lot of yelling, followed by, "But I love you!" just to try and minimize the effects of having a crazy-mom.
The scar is still a little bumpy and sensitive, but most people don't notice it. I put sunblock in it when I go out so the sun doesn't darken.
Some people just go on after they have a thyroid taken out like nothing happened. I have talked to a lot of them. It is annoying. But some people have a harder time. My she-doctor says that she has had patients that have taken two years to get leveled out. I keep thinking I am good, then I'll forget my medicine or get sleep deprived or whatever and it all gets thrown off.
Well, I am going to get my bottle and blanket and go cry in my corner now. Geeze, I'm a big baby.
