It has been a roller coster...

Okay, here goes...so the day before I got my MCAT results (34 - woohoo!!) someone in the OR noticed that there was a bump on my thyroid. Yesterday I found out that the bump is medullary thyroid cancer. I didn't know that our family had a history of any thyroid problems so this came as a real shock to everyone involved. Medullary thyroid cancers are most often hereditary and are very rare (hence the name of the blog). Yeah, I always like to beat the odds...and I'm going to continue to do so. On with the story - my aunt told me today that a couple of my grandmother's young cousins died of a "neck tumor" so it seems possible that we have the "special" gene. Thankfully that happened 40 years ago and medicine has come a long way.

Because this tumor is rare and associated with a syndrome called multiple endocrine neoplasm whatever I am going to see a specialist at Barnes. My first appointment with the specialist is Oct 3rd. I will have to have my thyroid removed and the lymph nodes in my neck evaluated. I don't really like the idea of being on that end of the knife, but I'm really tired of the tumor. I don't know much about MEN (the syndrome or the gender) because I don't think any syndrome with multiple and neoplasm in the name sounds like fun. Actually I'm intentionally not looking it up because I'm not going to scare the crap out of myself over something that I don't even know that I have. The only reading I'm doing is about spine surgery. For now I'm going to let the doctor be the doctor so I can do things like eat and sleep. This was the advice of some very courageous cancer survivors that I work with and damnet I am going to make it just like them...I've got plans you know. I do know that some people live with it for years. They have kids. They have lives. I'm focused on that.

I've been told this is treatable. Not as friendly as a teddy-bear-like papillary carcinoma, but fightable and fight I will do. It is weird. At the beginning of the day yesterday I was scared I had cancer and by the end I just wanted the normal one. I guess I just need someone to tell me I have a GBM or pancreatic cancer or an anaplastic tumor to put this in perspective. Thankfully I don't have those.

I wanted use this blog as an easy way to disperse information about what is going on. Feel free to ask me questions. Understand that at this point I'm intentionally not learning loads of new information so I may have no idea and not really want to find out.

I love you guys! Thanks so much for all the support.