Processed.

SO.  A few posts ago, I mentioned how I was so thankful that during this whole "health saga" thing, I was not AFRAID.  And promptly after that, this past Monday, I received news that scared the heebie jeebies out of me.  And I reacted fearfully.  Why do I fall for this stuff???  Why do I set myself up for things I know I'm most ill-equipped to handle?

Lessons, lessons, lessons.

So, after finding out this perceived bad news, I wallowed for 24 hours.  And cried some.  And researched all the horrible implications of "locally invasive" thyroid cancer (which is NOT pretty).  Because the PET scan showed hot spots in places in my neck where I was not expecting it to be.  I had prepared myself for metastasis to the lymph nodes.  I hadn't prepared myself for metastasis to muscles and vital things like my trachea and esophagus.  And then, when I saw the report saying those areas "lit up" on PET scan... it FREAKED ME OUT.  Big time.  Because, dang it, I have children that are not yet fully raised, and they really do need their mother. 

My husband, in response to my frantic texts expounding on the horrible things I learned from the thyroid cancer website, came back with "Don't be afraid.  God is good".  Yes, He is good.  But I WAS afraid.  And I needed some definitive answers.

So, I decided to call the doctor direct.  I didn't want to INFER bad news.  I wanted to definitively KNOW whether news was bad or not.  Directly.  I wanted to force the doctor to be blunt with me.  So I called him. 

He was on his way out of town on vacation with his family for two weeks, and couldn't talk.  So... ok.  I forced the NURSE to call him and talk to him, and then report back to me :). 

DOES THE FACT THAT THE CANCER METASTASIZED LOCALLY IN MY NECK CHANGE MY STAGING OR PROGNOSIS?  That is what I asked her to ask him (along with a question about my TSH levels, which STILL do not seem normal!!).  The nurse admitted readily that she had no idea at all the answer to that question.  So ask HIM, I asked.  Calmly.  Because I need to know. 

Just asking the question made me feel better.  Something about saying things out loud, or writing them down, clarifies things in my head.  It's helpful to me.  It's why I blog here about this kind of stuff.

When she called me back, all she could tell me is "We can't know.  We can't know what's normal thyroid tissue, and what's cancerous, until it is all dead, and then see what grows back.  So we have to be patient, and let the radioiodine heat-seeking missle do it's job."  That was the doctor's answer, as told to me by the nurse.  This, surprisingly, brought me quite a bit of peace.  Because even though at first it seems like a very dissatisfying answer to a very pertinent and burning question... it triggered something in me.  It made me remember something the ENT had said right after my surgery back in December.  He said at the time "yeah... your thyroid was stuck pretty good to that laryngeal nerve, and we had to tug fairly hard to get it off of there."  That's what he said, months ago.  I remembered it, because hello... that laryngeal nerve stopped working there for about a month after that, so the "tugging" episode probably explained a few things. 

And it made me realize that I had been thinking all along about my thyroid being a NORMAL thyroid.  So, when the thyroid bed "lit up" on PET scan... of course it would light up there, because that's where my thyroid used to be.  And that didn't freak me out.  It freaked me out when the scan said that my esophagus lit up, and the side muscles of my neck lit up, and the tracheoesophageal groove on the right lit up.  Places where a NORMAL thyroid wouldn't be.  But... OH YEAH!  My thyroid was HUGE!  DUH!  It's why I had surgery in the first place!  We didn't find out about the cancer until 10 days after my thyroidectomy.  I had my thyroidectomy, because my thyroid was HUGE AND PUSHING ON MY ESOPHAGUS AND TRACHEA, and taking up all kinds of room in my neck, and resting against my spine in the back.  My thyroid was NOT where a normal thyroid would be.  It was enormous, and touching (and apparently ADHERED TO) all kinds of things  in my neck that it wasn't supposed to be.  Which means... all those lit up spots in my neck?  It's very possible that those are remnants of normal thyroid tissue in places where normal thyroid tissue isn't typically to be found, and THAT'S what lit up.  That it's NOT "locally invasive", really bad bad bad news thyroid cancer, but "goiter gone amok" thyroid tissue.  And that makes me feel SO.MUCH.BETTER. and takes the fear and anxiety level down twelve notches or so.

YES, there was spread to a few lymph nodes, and a little bit to my lungs.  That is true metastasis - not remnants of the goiter.   The stuff at the base of my neck... that is where the cancer legitimately did spread. That part is pretty clear.  But that was the metastasis I had prepared myself mentally for.  Because it happens in 50% of cases, and doesn't change prognosis much.  The lymph node mets I can wrap my brain around.  It was the other spread that was so upsetting to me.  And now I realize... maybe that doesn't mean it was all cancer in those other places.  Because I forgot that it was not a normal-sized thyroid we removed in the first place, but one that had blown up to twice it's normal size due to the multinodular goiter, and the "bigger than a golf-ball" sized tumor on the one side (and oh yeah, cancer on the other side).  The goiter that was pushing on all kinds of structures in the neck that regular thyroid wouldn't have pushed on. 

And even though the doctor can't really tell me which one of these scenarios is the ACTUAL scenario (we can't know at this point) ... the fact that there IS another scenario gives me HOPE.   And that second scenario is far more likely in a normally behaving, slower growing, not-as-aggressive papillary thyroid cancer.  And thus, it takes away FEAR.

You almost got me, FEAR.  You're an ugly beast.  I will not live with you.  Be gone, be gone, be gone. 

God is good.  Don't be afraid.