All right, the last two days have been very busy but loaded with information and good news. :) I will warn you now...this is a LONG post.
First off I visited my pulmonologist (lung specialist) on Tuesday. He was concerned about my thyroid cancer being related to the spot on my lung and has referred me to an oncologist (cancer specialist). I saw the oncologist today and loved her. I wish she could be my primary doctor I liked her so much. The good news is she thinks that spot on my lung has absolutely nothing to do with my thyroid or any other type of cancer. She said if you lined up 100 healthy people and did a CT scan of them that 60 of the scans would come out looking like mine. She said the spot is 3mm or smaller which is very very very tiny. She recommended we do a repeat scan in 6 months just to ease our minds. She said to definitely not do a PT scan because it wouldn't be accurate. Apparently the spot has to be about 1cm before the scan would be helpful. She said I do not need to see her again and has given that case back to the pulmonologist. I'm pretty sure he will do another scan in 3 months just to ease his mind which is fine with me.
Yesterday I went to my surgeon. He had the pathology lab reports back on the left side of my thyroid and my lymph nodes...they are BENIGN!! Yay!!! More good news is my calcium levels were good. There was some parathyroid tissue on the sample sent to pathology so at least one was damaged but since my calcium is good then that means I have enough healthy ones to function properly. So it looks like the cancer was just contained in that one nodule that was on the isthmus and right thyroid gland. Other than that I am to start putting Neosporin on my incision and when I go back in a month he will then let me put on a scar healing product. The stitches should go away on their own and the steri strips will come off as well. He said that if they were bothering and still not off in 2 weeks just to take them off. Guess I shall have to part with my "necklace" sooner or later. :) What I am looking forward to is not sleeping propped up. I should be able to do that in a day or so. I know my neck and back will thank me when I can sleep normally.
After my surgeon appointment I went to the endocrinologist (thyroid specialist). He was not happy that they took the thyroid out in 2 surgeries instead of the one that he recommended but whatever. I'm not upset about it. Who knows what kind of complications from vocal chord nerves and parathyroid glands that could have happened. God allows things for a reason and I'll follow His lead any day. :) On to treatment. Not sure the exact dates (we'll find out on Monday) but it should happen over the next 3-4 weeks. I will be on a low iodine diet for 10-14 days to help starve my body of iodine. Thyroid tissue loves iodine and it is the only tissue in the body that uses it to work. When I get the iodine 2 weeks later we want it to readily suck it up. :) Towards the end of the diet I will be given 2 shots of a drug called Thyrogen over 2 days time. The drug helps stimulate my brain in trying to produce thyroid hormones making it even hungrier for the iodine. On the third day I will be given a pill of radioactive iodine. Any remaining thyroid tissue will be starving for it and gobble it up for lack of a better term. It will then die due to the iodine being radioactive. After that I am technically a thyroid cancer survivor. Yay! :) This is where I constantly hear the song "I'm a survivor" by Destiny's Child played over and over again in my head. LOL...yes I'm weird...so what! :)
Here is where the tricky part comes in. My endo thinks that I should just go home after being given the radioactive iodine and not be kept in the hospital even though I have 2 small children. The oncologist we saw today said if it were her she would be away from the kids for 2-3 days. We are going to be calling the radiology place that will be administering the iodine and find out what dosage it will be if they can tell us at this point. They may not be able to tell us until I start my Thyrogen injections. Once we get that info we will make a decision but I do believe we are leaning towards me not being near the kids if possible just to be on the safe side. Please be praying for wisdom regarding this. Brian has a ton of hotel points saved up so I may stay at a hotel here in town and have a mini vacation and just make sure I stay away from kids and pregnant women. I would actually look forward to that. I would miss my kids but it would be a true break for sure. :)
After all of that is done I will then start on thyroid medication. We are not sure what type yet. We have 2 different options. A synthetic drug called Synthroid that is a T4 hormone or a natural med usually known as Armour which is a T4 & T3 hormone. I've heard good and bad about both. I have friends on Synthyroid that are fine and doing great and have no problems and I have friends that switched from Synthyroid because they were not doing well on it to Armour and now they are doing great. I also know people on Synthyroid that weren't doing well but their doctors gave them a T3 drug to take with the Synthroid and that seemed to help. It seems to be a person by person case on what works good and what doesn't. We would just ask for prayers regarding making this decision. I usually lean towards anything natural but I am not against traditional medications either. I would just like to get the facts on both drugs so we can make an unbiased decision. Now knowing that Armour is made up of pig thyroid is a little gross to me but if we choose that one I'll just make sure I try not to snort to much when something funny is said. LOL! I know...corny...sorry couldn't help it. :) This part seems to be like motherhood where you stress about every little decision you make because you think it reflects on you as a person and someone may think you are off your rocker if you do something different than them. Argh!!! LOL! After all this is finally figured out I will have regular checkups with my endo to get the medicine dosage correct and to keep an eye out to make sure the cancer does not come back. There is a 30% recurrence rate to thyroid cancer. We are praying I never have a repeat of it but if I do it will be another dose of radioactive iodine I believe.
Anyway...decision aside I am so glad to have the worst of this behind me. I am not looking forward to the injections but I do believe 2 surgeries in 3 days is way more painful than 2 injections in 2 days. I think I may be up to the task. :)
Everyone is asking me how I feel. EXHAUSTED, EXHAUSTED, EXHAUSTED. My body has realized there is no thyroid there any longer. I am also starting to not tolerate cold well or things that would usually not be cold to me (like 77 degrees in our house) has me buried under covers...well that and wanting to go to bed at 7pm as well. LOL! Oh yeah...I am also forgetful and absentminded. Please do not be offended if I ask you things several time. Today I went to pick up Eric from school and left the garage door up and the door leading to our house unlocked. Fabulous...I never do things like that. I also left the kids milk on the counter that I was going to take to our friends house when she watched them today but of course the cups remained on the counter and never made it to the car. I also left my wallet in the car in plain view of anyone that wanted it. These may not seem like big things but for them all to happen in the course of 1 hour had me highly frustrated. Surgery wise I am feeling really good. I have regained a lot of mobility in my neck. It still kind of hurts a little to cough, laugh or talk a lot but for the most part I am back to normal regarding that. I just have another week of no lifting to really worry about. I cannot wait to get back into the gym. Now having no energy may keep me away from it as frequently as I was going before but I would like to get back a couple of days a week. So far this year I've lost 15 lbs....10lbs of which came off after my thyroid cancer diagnosis (the first one). Nothing like stress to take the weight off right? :) Now I'm just hoping to maintain this weight as a side effect of hypothyroid is weight gain or the ability not to lose weight until I get on my medicine. After that then I hope to get the last 5-10 lbs off.
The cool thing is we are having meals being provided every other day for us and next week while Brian is away in training we have some friends that have offered to come stay the night with me a few nights. I am going to take them up on that one to as I really crash about 5pm...not good when the kids bedtime is 7:30pm. Other people have offered to come over after work and help me out as well which is awesome. I still can't get over the fact that so many people are helping us in so many ways. I just love being a part of God's family. :)
Alright...I know this was a long one. Next post I will try and be good and keep it short. Just a lot of information to get out there tonight.
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