In the past, I have sunk into depressions when challenges have come my way, maybe primarily because I concentrate so hard on my own woes during times of trial that I can’t see anything else. This time around, God has me looking outside myself and He’s reminding me every day that there are people who have it way worse than I do, that others still need me, that I can make a positive impact on this world, and that life shouldn’t stop because somebody has to have surgery. There are baseball banquets to organize, end-of-school-year activities to get involved with, people celebrating 10 years of marriage who really could use a dinner alone and don’t have a babysitter, old people who need love, kids who need help with their homework, teachers who need help in the classroom before Open House on May 22…… the list goes on and on.
I’m getting involved.
Thanks to God’s guidance, this has been my way of responding to the fact that I need more surgery and still have thyroid tissue (probably cancer) in my neck: Life is meant to be lived. “Carpe diem,” as the movie Dead Poets’ Society said. And I keep thinking of that line in The Shawshank Redemption—“Get busy living, or get busy dying.”
I’ll take “get busy living,” thank you very much.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
What's That on The Dining Room Table?
My thyroid cancer is sitting on my dining room table. Yesterday Jack and I drove to Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and picked up a nondescript 13” by 10” envelope from the pathology department containing 10 paraffin “blocks.” The blocks of wax contain the specimens removed from my neck on February 21, 2008, during my lumpectomy-turned-lobectomy-turned-near-total-thyroidectomy. They are kind of gross and totally fascinating.
Pommy doesn’t want to see them. Last night after dinner, he politely declined when I asked him if he wanted to look in the envelope. (Hmmm… maybe right after dinner wasn’t the best time to suggest a thyroid cancer tissue viewing.) I’m not offering to let Jack see them, and he hasn’t asked. He’s only 8 years old, and I think that’s too gross for him.
Since my diagnosis some 14 months ago, I’ve wondered if I should pursue a second opinion of the pathology from the original surgery. Lately I’ve felt with more clarity that I should get a second opinion. With everything lately, I have a clarity of purpose and a decisiveness that has been lacking most of my life, but even more lacking in the last few years.
God has been telling me to wait for the pathology report from this Thursday’s biopsy (technically a fine-needle aspiration or FNA) to decide whether to pursue a second opinion of the original pathology and diagnosis. If the pathology from the FNA says straight papillary carcinoma with no variants (some of the variants of papillary are follicular, Hurthle cell, tall cell, columnar, insular, etc.), I think I’ll skip the second opinion on the original pathology. As a very dear virtual friend of mine recently said via e-mail, “Quite honestly, it seems to me to be more important to know what you have rather than what you had, though I certainly understand the desire to know. On the other hand ...while it is likely that whatever variant may show up in this FNA would probably be the same as your original cancer, it might also not be. I think I would wait to see what the upcoming FNA shows, and take it from there. If this one is also malignant and straight papillary, I would probably let it go at that. Unless you find yourself thinking about it a lot, in which case it's worth the price just to put the matter to rest.” This gal is someone I “met” via the thyroid cancer listserv I’ve been frequenting over the past 16 months. This is where I’ve gotten a lot of my information on thyroid cancer itself, treatment protocols, endocrinologists, and a lot of other guidance, too.
Anyway, I had been thinking about waiting for the biopsy results, and God had been pointing me that direction, too. There are a lot of “on the other hand”s, but the fact remains that I need to deal with what I know, and I know that Irvine Regional Hospital doesn’t have any reputation—good or bad--as far as thyroid cancer pathology, and it can be a very specialized diagnosis. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you could miss some characteristics that would deem the cancer a variant of straight papillary thyroid carcinoma, and having a variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma sometimes changes the course of treatment. Sometimes it changes the course of treatment dramatically.
The Good Cancer? Um, Not So Much
Papillary thyroid carcinoma is known as a slow-growing, fairly “good cancer,” a misnomer that most people diagnosed with the disease resent. Although they might not mind the phrase “good cancer” when they’re diagnosed (let’s face it—it’s sort of comforting!) most thycans eventually come to dislike it.
It’s ironic to note that lots of us also inadvertently perpetuate that “good cancer” label in the beginning (I sure did) because we don’t want family and friends to worry about us. I remember telling people right after my diagnosis, “Don’t worry—if you’re going to get cancer, this is the one to get” and I also told people what my ENT/otolaryngologist had said to me: ‘If God called me and said “I have to give your mother cancer; which one do you want Me to give her?” this is the one I would give her.’ After I told people about my diagnosis, these well-meaning words definitely seemed to make people feel better about my prognosis, and they made me feel better about the whole thing, too.
But being typically slow-growing and thyca patients typically having a good prognosis does not a good cancer make. I’ve come to see that there really is no such thing as a good cancer. It’s an oxymoron—the terms are mutually exclusive.
Surgeons, endocrinologists (the endocrine specialists who treat and follow thyroid cancer patients after diagnosis and for the rest of their lives) and primary care physicians are wont to pat us thycans on the head after diagnosis and tell us “You’ll be fine [my oncologist for 7 months]. You have the good cancer [my ENT/otolaryngologist, who originally sent me for an ultrasound of the lump on the middle of my neck]. You’ll live 50 more years [the surgeon who performed my original thyroidectomy].”
I don’t harbor any bitterness toward two of the three doctors I quote in the previous paragraph. I do have some residual anger at the oncologist I saw for 7 months, who initially said he could handle my case but in the end said he was out of his depth and referred me to some bozo endocrinologist that my own primary care physician had already warned me “doesn’t know what he’s doing.” I still have a little anger toward this particular doctor because once he made me wait an hour and a half in the waiting room, an additional half-hour in the examination room, and then he came in, let me talk for a minute or two, excused himself for 20 minutes to take another patient’s phone call (I heard him on the phone right outside the exam room door), and then when he came back in to let me finish telling him how bad I was feeling on the lower dose of Synthroid he had prescribed, he promptly fired himself from my case, saying that he thought he could handle my follow-up but that he could not.
This was the same doctor who, during a previous office visit, had patted me on the leg and said “How cute” about the fact that I kept well-organized copies of all my thyca-related medical records in a binder, which I brought with me to all my appointments.
To take ownership of that failed doctor-patient relationship, though, I have to admit that when I took him as my doctor, I had done enough research to know that endocrinologists, not oncologists, typically treat and provide follow-up care for thyroid cancer patients. I had gone to the oncologist out of sheer desperation after my original endocrinologist had not provided adequate or informed care. I was a little rushed trying to find a new endocrinologist, and in my haste, I thought an oncologist might be a better fit. Now, many months later, many doctors’ appointments later, and at least $650 in out-of-pocket expenses for an out-of-network second opinion later, I finally have an endocrinologist who knows as much as I do (possibly even more than I do) about thyroid cancer.
No surprise here: God led me to my new endocrinologist.
Variants of Papillary Carcinoma
Papillary with a follicular variant
Hurthle Cell
Tall Cell
Columnar
Insular
Warthin
Pommy doesn’t want to see them. Last night after dinner, he politely declined when I asked him if he wanted to look in the envelope. (Hmmm… maybe right after dinner wasn’t the best time to suggest a thyroid cancer tissue viewing.) I’m not offering to let Jack see them, and he hasn’t asked. He’s only 8 years old, and I think that’s too gross for him.
Since my diagnosis some 14 months ago, I’ve wondered if I should pursue a second opinion of the pathology from the original surgery. Lately I’ve felt with more clarity that I should get a second opinion. With everything lately, I have a clarity of purpose and a decisiveness that has been lacking most of my life, but even more lacking in the last few years.
God has been telling me to wait for the pathology report from this Thursday’s biopsy (technically a fine-needle aspiration or FNA) to decide whether to pursue a second opinion of the original pathology and diagnosis. If the pathology from the FNA says straight papillary carcinoma with no variants (some of the variants of papillary are follicular, Hurthle cell, tall cell, columnar, insular, etc.), I think I’ll skip the second opinion on the original pathology. As a very dear virtual friend of mine recently said via e-mail, “Quite honestly, it seems to me to be more important to know what you have rather than what you had, though I certainly understand the desire to know. On the other hand ...while it is likely that whatever variant may show up in this FNA would probably be the same as your original cancer, it might also not be. I think I would wait to see what the upcoming FNA shows, and take it from there. If this one is also malignant and straight papillary, I would probably let it go at that. Unless you find yourself thinking about it a lot, in which case it's worth the price just to put the matter to rest.” This gal is someone I “met” via the thyroid cancer listserv I’ve been frequenting over the past 16 months. This is where I’ve gotten a lot of my information on thyroid cancer itself, treatment protocols, endocrinologists, and a lot of other guidance, too.
Anyway, I had been thinking about waiting for the biopsy results, and God had been pointing me that direction, too. There are a lot of “on the other hand”s, but the fact remains that I need to deal with what I know, and I know that Irvine Regional Hospital doesn’t have any reputation—good or bad--as far as thyroid cancer pathology, and it can be a very specialized diagnosis. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you could miss some characteristics that would deem the cancer a variant of straight papillary thyroid carcinoma, and having a variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma sometimes changes the course of treatment. Sometimes it changes the course of treatment dramatically.
The Good Cancer? Um, Not So Much
Papillary thyroid carcinoma is known as a slow-growing, fairly “good cancer,” a misnomer that most people diagnosed with the disease resent. Although they might not mind the phrase “good cancer” when they’re diagnosed (let’s face it—it’s sort of comforting!) most thycans eventually come to dislike it.
It’s ironic to note that lots of us also inadvertently perpetuate that “good cancer” label in the beginning (I sure did) because we don’t want family and friends to worry about us. I remember telling people right after my diagnosis, “Don’t worry—if you’re going to get cancer, this is the one to get” and I also told people what my ENT/otolaryngologist had said to me: ‘If God called me and said “I have to give your mother cancer; which one do you want Me to give her?” this is the one I would give her.’ After I told people about my diagnosis, these well-meaning words definitely seemed to make people feel better about my prognosis, and they made me feel better about the whole thing, too.
But being typically slow-growing and thyca patients typically having a good prognosis does not a good cancer make. I’ve come to see that there really is no such thing as a good cancer. It’s an oxymoron—the terms are mutually exclusive.
Surgeons, endocrinologists (the endocrine specialists who treat and follow thyroid cancer patients after diagnosis and for the rest of their lives) and primary care physicians are wont to pat us thycans on the head after diagnosis and tell us “You’ll be fine [my oncologist for 7 months]. You have the good cancer [my ENT/otolaryngologist, who originally sent me for an ultrasound of the lump on the middle of my neck]. You’ll live 50 more years [the surgeon who performed my original thyroidectomy].”
I don’t harbor any bitterness toward two of the three doctors I quote in the previous paragraph. I do have some residual anger at the oncologist I saw for 7 months, who initially said he could handle my case but in the end said he was out of his depth and referred me to some bozo endocrinologist that my own primary care physician had already warned me “doesn’t know what he’s doing.” I still have a little anger toward this particular doctor because once he made me wait an hour and a half in the waiting room, an additional half-hour in the examination room, and then he came in, let me talk for a minute or two, excused himself for 20 minutes to take another patient’s phone call (I heard him on the phone right outside the exam room door), and then when he came back in to let me finish telling him how bad I was feeling on the lower dose of Synthroid he had prescribed, he promptly fired himself from my case, saying that he thought he could handle my follow-up but that he could not.
This was the same doctor who, during a previous office visit, had patted me on the leg and said “How cute” about the fact that I kept well-organized copies of all my thyca-related medical records in a binder, which I brought with me to all my appointments.
To take ownership of that failed doctor-patient relationship, though, I have to admit that when I took him as my doctor, I had done enough research to know that endocrinologists, not oncologists, typically treat and provide follow-up care for thyroid cancer patients. I had gone to the oncologist out of sheer desperation after my original endocrinologist had not provided adequate or informed care. I was a little rushed trying to find a new endocrinologist, and in my haste, I thought an oncologist might be a better fit. Now, many months later, many doctors’ appointments later, and at least $650 in out-of-pocket expenses for an out-of-network second opinion later, I finally have an endocrinologist who knows as much as I do (possibly even more than I do) about thyroid cancer.
No surprise here: God led me to my new endocrinologist.
Variants of Papillary Carcinoma
Papillary with a follicular variant
Hurthle Cell
Tall Cell
Columnar
Insular
Warthin
Monday, April 27, 2009
Words...And Voices
This morning on my way back from dropping Brendan off at Woodbridge High School, I was struck by the overwhelming urge to stop by my parents’ house and apologize again for what a terrible, mean, hostile, aggressive teenager I was…and for all the trauma and sorrow I put them through even when I was a young adult and should have known better.
I considered driving by, going on to our house in Tustin, but my eyes filled with tears for the first time in weeks (being off Synthroid has made me less emotional and less prone to crying…a good thing), and I put my blinker on to make a right on Poplar to enter my parents’ neighborhood.
My dad was out golfing, but my mom was there, opening the door to me in her usual kitty T-shirt and shorts, getting ready to take her dog Rocky for a walk. She let me in and we talked a while. I apologized again for all the crap I put her and my dad through, as a teenager and a twentysomething. She was sweet and hugged me and told me I was forgiven. I also told her I was sorry for being so harsh, so critical in the past (I don’t think I used the word “critical,” although I should have), and that God was working on me, and I was tired of being that way.
It felt good to apologize.
On my way home from my parents’ house, thinking about what to do today (on my short list was possibly running, writing, going grocery shopping, to Target and/or cleaning parts of the house), I said to God, “My day is yours. Direct me.” So here I am writing again. This is now page 20, although I’m sure that will change as I write more, revise, reorganize, etc. Page 20 out of I-don’t-know-how-many pages. I’m giving that to God, too.
Voice Concerns
As I’ve mentioned, I have always loved singing, and in the past few years, I’ve discovered the joy of singing in the choir at my church. Thyroidectomy and any neck surgery runs the risk of damaging one or both vocal chords, and I was lucky enough to have no damage from the surgery last year. Although my voice was weaker for several weeks after the surgery, I have been able to sing pretty normally (as “normally” as I could sing before the operation, anyway—hardy har har) since then.
Lately I have heard God’s voice telling me that if my voice is not the same after my upcoming surgery, it’s His will. He’s telling me that my voice can continue on paper—here—and that I can still proclaim His faithful service to me, that I can still tell anyone and everyone who will listen about how awesome MY GOD is. I might not always be able to do that through song, or with my voice, but if that is His will for me, I’ll still be able to communicate my personal experience of His glory on paper.
I love words. Sung, spoken, written--whatever. Words are so valuable.
I considered driving by, going on to our house in Tustin, but my eyes filled with tears for the first time in weeks (being off Synthroid has made me less emotional and less prone to crying…a good thing), and I put my blinker on to make a right on Poplar to enter my parents’ neighborhood.
My dad was out golfing, but my mom was there, opening the door to me in her usual kitty T-shirt and shorts, getting ready to take her dog Rocky for a walk. She let me in and we talked a while. I apologized again for all the crap I put her and my dad through, as a teenager and a twentysomething. She was sweet and hugged me and told me I was forgiven. I also told her I was sorry for being so harsh, so critical in the past (I don’t think I used the word “critical,” although I should have), and that God was working on me, and I was tired of being that way.
It felt good to apologize.
On my way home from my parents’ house, thinking about what to do today (on my short list was possibly running, writing, going grocery shopping, to Target and/or cleaning parts of the house), I said to God, “My day is yours. Direct me.” So here I am writing again. This is now page 20, although I’m sure that will change as I write more, revise, reorganize, etc. Page 20 out of I-don’t-know-how-many pages. I’m giving that to God, too.
Voice Concerns
As I’ve mentioned, I have always loved singing, and in the past few years, I’ve discovered the joy of singing in the choir at my church. Thyroidectomy and any neck surgery runs the risk of damaging one or both vocal chords, and I was lucky enough to have no damage from the surgery last year. Although my voice was weaker for several weeks after the surgery, I have been able to sing pretty normally (as “normally” as I could sing before the operation, anyway—hardy har har) since then.
Lately I have heard God’s voice telling me that if my voice is not the same after my upcoming surgery, it’s His will. He’s telling me that my voice can continue on paper—here—and that I can still proclaim His faithful service to me, that I can still tell anyone and everyone who will listen about how awesome MY GOD is. I might not always be able to do that through song, or with my voice, but if that is His will for me, I’ll still be able to communicate my personal experience of His glory on paper.
I love words. Sung, spoken, written--whatever. Words are so valuable.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The Kids and Believing in God
I am calmer still, and able to breathe through my nose still and pooping regularly still and feeling better physically than I have in a long, long time. My stomach feels flatter (I lost 2-3 pounds on the LID), and I have more energy. I’m falling asleep at night at about 8-9 pm, but I’m also waking up earlier bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. For instance, this morning I got up at 6:30 and feel totally alert and awake. I did go to bed last night at 9 pm, and I did wake up for an hour and a half around 3 am, but still, I’m feeling very good and super energetic during the day. Yesterday I did several loads of laundry, did the MS Walk, took Brendan to Wild Rivers interviews, made lunches and dinner, did some gardening and vacuumed the entire house, laminate floors included. It was my eighth day back on Synthroid after being off it for 29 days.
On the way home from church this morning with Brendan and Jack in the car, I told them that when I was young, I believed in God because I was raised to believe in God, that when I was older—a young adult—I believed in God because it was habit, but that now I believed in God because I know He’s real and He’s proving it to me everyday. I told them that God was showing me things about Himself and giving me evidence of His existence every day since my thyroid cancer diagnosis, and I even told them I was writing a book about how God is making Himself known to me through my cancer. (I joked it was only a pamphlet right now, and Brendan laughed.) Brendan asked, “Are you going to publish it?” and I said, “Oh, I don’t know. I’m just writing it so I’ll have something to look back on and remind me how awesome God was to me through this time, and I want to have something for you and Jack to read to tell you what God has done for me. I don’t want to forget this.”
Turns out Brendan is agnostic. In the same conversation in the car, Jack asked Brendan if he believed in God, and he said something along the lines of, “I don’t know if you can know whether or not there’s a God.” I’m not shocked. I think I would have said I was agnostic when I was a teenager, too. You’re way too skeptical to take things at face value when you’re a teenager. Plus, you think you know it all, and nobody can tell you anything. And I appreciated Brendan’s honesty, even though it’s not what I want for him. At least now I know where he stands—or at least where he says he stands. You know all that teenage bravado can mask true feelings. I have faith that God has been working on Brendan and will continue to work on Brendan forever. But now I know I need to begin praying earnestly for Brendan to come to know Jesus as I have.
On the way home from church this morning with Brendan and Jack in the car, I told them that when I was young, I believed in God because I was raised to believe in God, that when I was older—a young adult—I believed in God because it was habit, but that now I believed in God because I know He’s real and He’s proving it to me everyday. I told them that God was showing me things about Himself and giving me evidence of His existence every day since my thyroid cancer diagnosis, and I even told them I was writing a book about how God is making Himself known to me through my cancer. (I joked it was only a pamphlet right now, and Brendan laughed.) Brendan asked, “Are you going to publish it?” and I said, “Oh, I don’t know. I’m just writing it so I’ll have something to look back on and remind me how awesome God was to me through this time, and I want to have something for you and Jack to read to tell you what God has done for me. I don’t want to forget this.”
Turns out Brendan is agnostic. In the same conversation in the car, Jack asked Brendan if he believed in God, and he said something along the lines of, “I don’t know if you can know whether or not there’s a God.” I’m not shocked. I think I would have said I was agnostic when I was a teenager, too. You’re way too skeptical to take things at face value when you’re a teenager. Plus, you think you know it all, and nobody can tell you anything. And I appreciated Brendan’s honesty, even though it’s not what I want for him. At least now I know where he stands—or at least where he says he stands. You know all that teenage bravado can mask true feelings. I have faith that God has been working on Brendan and will continue to work on Brendan forever. But now I know I need to begin praying earnestly for Brendan to come to know Jesus as I have.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Meeting Don
There’s this very old, stooped-over man who I’ve seen walking in the neighborhood over the seven years we’ve lived here. I saw him again today when I was out walking the dogs, and for the first time in all the years I’ve been noticing him, I called out to him from across the street and asked him his name. We wound up having a lovely conversation for 10 minutes or so, and he is the sweetest little old man ever. He’s 82 years old, married, wife had a minor stroke (but is still “ornery as ever…a strong German woman”). His name is Don, he lives at Holt and Vanderlip in the house with an American flag out front, and I enjoyed talking to him so much. He was a real sweetie pie. God is urging me to reach outside myself and talk to people more—to be friendlier and to talk to people about their lives. I think it’s His way of getting me outside my head, which has been a force that has dragged me down in the past—being in my head too much, in my own (sometimes very negative cycle of) thoughts… It sure makes your day different when you hear from someone who’s 82 years old that life is still good. What a great perspective.
I feel so much happier now than I ever have before. The kids, Pommy and I did the MS Walk this morning with Carolyn, Tracy, Laci and my mom. It was a beautiful day today.
I feel so much happier now than I ever have before. The kids, Pommy and I did the MS Walk this morning with Carolyn, Tracy, Laci and my mom. It was a beautiful day today.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Getting a Second Opinion on Pathology
God has directed me to get a second opinion on the original pathology from my original thyroidectomy surgery. The original pathology said I have papillary carcinoma, the most common kind of thyroid cancer, and the path report doesn’t mention any variant of papillary or any aggressive features. But I’ve always wondered, so I’m pursuing getting a second opinion.
Since I had my surgery, the facility where I had the operation, Irvine Regional Hospital, has closed, and I’ve heard the building is being taken over by Hoag. All medical records from Irvine Regional Hospital (including my itty bitty thyroid cancer cells on slides) were shipped to a warehouse somewhere. I just found out that the original slides from my original surgery are missing, but thankfully, new slides can be made up using the “blocks”—paraffin wax-sealed tissue samples obtained during my thyroidectomy. The gal at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital, who is the contact person for people wanting to obtain pathology slides from Irvine Regional Hospital, says my new slides are scheduled to arrive today, Friday, April 24, 2009. I plan to drive there and pick them up.
It’ll be weird to have slides with my thyroid cancer in them riding in the car with me.
I’ve learned so much about medicine during this process. I’ve learned so much about how to get what you need from the people who can help you. I’ve learned how to tone down my approach (I used to always be so harsh!), and I’m getting much better results from people who can help me get what I need. It’s so good to be getting better at life. Thank you, Jesus!
Since I had my surgery, the facility where I had the operation, Irvine Regional Hospital, has closed, and I’ve heard the building is being taken over by Hoag. All medical records from Irvine Regional Hospital (including my itty bitty thyroid cancer cells on slides) were shipped to a warehouse somewhere. I just found out that the original slides from my original surgery are missing, but thankfully, new slides can be made up using the “blocks”—paraffin wax-sealed tissue samples obtained during my thyroidectomy. The gal at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital, who is the contact person for people wanting to obtain pathology slides from Irvine Regional Hospital, says my new slides are scheduled to arrive today, Friday, April 24, 2009. I plan to drive there and pick them up.
It’ll be weird to have slides with my thyroid cancer in them riding in the car with me.
I’ve learned so much about medicine during this process. I’ve learned so much about how to get what you need from the people who can help you. I’ve learned how to tone down my approach (I used to always be so harsh!), and I’m getting much better results from people who can help me get what I need. It’s so good to be getting better at life. Thank you, Jesus!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Why am I writing all this down for you?
“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through His name.”
--John 20:30-31, American King James version
“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through His name.”
--John 20:30-31, American King James version
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Jeremiah 29: 11-13
Today one of the e-mails I sent out updating friends and family about my thyroid cancer treatment bounced back to me, so I assumed I had an old e-mail address for the friend to whom I’d sent it. I e-mailed a mutual friend asking her for the gal’s current e-mail address. Within an hour, I received an e-mail from the friend whose e-mail had bounced back to me with her new address. It looked like a bulk e-mail that she had sent out to her entire contacts list, but I thought that was a wild coincidence that I had needed her new address and within the hour she sent out a bulk e-mail with a new address. I e-mailed her all my current treatment info, and she e-mailed me back offering support and kindness, and we got to chatting via e-mail about when she had sent out that bulk e-mail with her new e-mail address. In her words, “Yes, I did do a mass email but that was a while ago. So that is strange indeed.”
I feel like God is telling me a bunch of things these days, among them:
1. Ask me for something and I will respond. I hear you.
2. I will respond to your request in a timely manner.
3. I provide excellent customer service; you just have to trust that I know what’s best for you.
4. I have been answering you all your life in this same manner; you just haven’t always had your ear toward me or your eyes toward me, so it’s been hard for you to hear and see me.
5. I mean you no harm.
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says Yahweh, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future. You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart.”
--Jeremiah 29:11-13, World English Bible
I feel like God is telling me a bunch of things these days, among them:
1. Ask me for something and I will respond. I hear you.
2. I will respond to your request in a timely manner.
3. I provide excellent customer service; you just have to trust that I know what’s best for you.
4. I have been answering you all your life in this same manner; you just haven’t always had your ear toward me or your eyes toward me, so it’s been hard for you to hear and see me.
5. I mean you no harm.
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says Yahweh, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future. You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart.”
--Jeremiah 29:11-13, World English Bible
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
God Is Here For Me
Witnessing to Jack
Yesterday while Jack and I were driving home from my parents’ house after having a birthday dinner for my dad, I was moved to tell Jack how even though I have to have another surgery, I’ve never felt closer to God or more taken care of by Him or more comforted by Him, and that sometimes even when we might not think that what’s happening in our lives is good, it’s for our good, and God won’t let anything happen to us that He doesn’t have a reason for. I went into a little more detail, and I thought his eyes might have started to glaze over (I took a peek in the rearview mirror), and I asked him, “What do you think of that?” and he replied right away, “I think if I tried playing baseball again, I might like it better.”
And that was that.
So I switched to his topic and hoped my topic had sunk into his brain somehow, and we talked a little more about baseball and how yes, it was probably a good idea to try it again, maybe play Little League this time instead of Pony Baseball.
My dear friend, Diane, when I sent her an e-mail telling her about this exchange between me and Jack, had a pearl of wisdom to offer me that had not occurred to me: “This is so cute. But maybe he's interested in trying baseball because he feels God won't let anything happen to him (like being scared or self-conscious). Maybe it really did sink in.”
I hadn’t seen that Jack’s apparent subject change might not have been a subject change at all—just a continuation on the same theme—that God will protect you no matter what, and if you trust in Him, everything will be fine, and we don’t have to worry about things. If that’s the case, if that’s what Jack meant, I think it’s amazing that an 8-year-old can extrapolate like that—especially as it relates to God and His awesome power.
What’s more, my husband’s response to the anecdote about Jack/baseball/God was sweet and tender and thoughtful (and a little self-deprecating): “That is interesting. Last night I looked at the fridge and saw his baseball picture. It made me sad thinking of that whole ordeal and I felt like he was traumatized by the whole thing and the coach. If I was going to do that over again, I would have pulled him out at the first inkling. I moved the picture down and highlighted his soccer pictures cause seeing it makes me sad. The fact that he is considering playing baseball again after all that tells me something about his character. He has more character than I have ever had.”
While this may be a leap, I can’t help but think that Pommy is slowly coming to the Lord.
Dogs Sense Something?
The dogs are treating me differently. They are being extra sweet and loving and caring. I know that must sound weird, but I can feel it in my bones. They sense something different about me. It could be that they can smell the 2 mCi radioactive iodine I was given last Wednesday for the whole-body scan—it could be something physical and olfactory, and for dogs, this would be very interesting—a new smell. They are definitely sniffing me more--and more tentatively since last week.
I’ve read things about dogs sensing cancer and other illnesses in their owners. I saw a “Dog Whisperer” episode once where a dog could sense when his owner was going to have a seizure (or something like this), and the dog was able to let the owner know well in advance, and the owner could take their medicine to prevent it…something like that. So I do believe that dogs have a sense about these things.
Speaking of senses, my senses are all heightened in this stage. I wonder how hypothyroid I am. I’m going to check my “coming back from hypothyroid” notes from last year after my treatment dose of RAI and see how long it took me to get from super hypo (TSH>60) to suppressed (TSH <.10). In 6 weeks, I was down to a TSH of .06 on 125 mcg Synthroid. So it may take me 6 weeks to get suppressed on 112 mcg, which is the dose I am currently taking.
Wondering about vocal improvement
I love singing. I have always loved singing. My sisters and I have always enjoyed singing in the car, especially on road trips to San Francisco, which we did a few times as young adults. I have no idea if my voice is decent or even mediocre, but I know I love singing. I sang in choir in high school, I had to sing a capella in front of my debate class in 12th grade, I took a voice class after my separation from my first husband (during that period of time when I was of the mind that “I’m gonna do all the stuff I’ve always wanted to do”), and a few years before my thyroid cancer diagnosis, I had reconnected with singing in a more meaningful way—this time occasionally singing in the choir at church.
I have never felt such joy as I experience while singing in the choir. I feel a meaningfulness and a clarity of purpose and a purity when I am singing to my Savior—a feeling of oneness and truth that I haven’t experienced with any other type of singing, or with any other way of connecting to God, either. It’s when I’m singing the alto part of “I Will Rise” with the Easter choir that I feel the most connected to Jesus. It’s the purest joy I’ve ever felt.
Sunday night, April 19, 2009, was my rock bottom as far as feeling bad in my hypothyroid state. I’d taken a ½ of a 12 mg Cytomel, a fast-acting thyroid hormone with a short half-life, is prescribed to thyroid cancer patients to take while they are going hypothyroid and while they are coming back from hypothyroid, to ease the symptoms of fatigue and lethargy that sometimes come along with going hypo.
I found out Sunday night that I am a person who doesn’t tolerate Cytomel well at all. Even taking ½ a pill, which is ¼ the usual daily dose, it gave me heart palpitations, racing thoughts, anxiety, insomnia worse than I already had it in my hypo state, and my eyes were racing back and forth under my eyelids as I laid there in bed all night trying to sleep but unable. I almost felt like I was “on drugs.” Like the way you might feel if you took an overdose of something. It was an awful feeling, of being out of control of my body, of wishing I hadn’t taken the Cytomel (I think I took it in the afternoon, which is totally fine for most people, but not me), of wishing I could sleep.
However, over the last 2 weeks or so when my insomnia has been its worst, there have been a few positives come out of it. I think a lot more at night, and I plan to do nice things for people. I make long-range goals for myself, I plan to volunteer at nursing homes and help the poor and destitute. (In the past I have felt this way often when I exercise. Running on the treadmill often results in me planning to buy flowers for several people and tell them how much they mean to me. Sometimes I act on the plans I make, but often I do not.)
Back to Sunday night. One of the things I wondered while laying in bed, mind racing, is whether there has ever been anyone whose voice/vocal cords have actually improved as a result of neck/thyroid/thyroid cancer/neck dissection surgery. It’s not uncommon for thyroid surgeries to result in vocal cord damage or paralysis—temporary or permanent—and I always felt lucky to have dodged that bullet in my first surgery because I love singing so much. So there I lay, wondering if anyone’s voice had actually improved.
The next morning, while reading messages on the thyca listserv, I noticed a message titled “Vocal Cord Paralysis.” It was a thread that had been started by a woman whose husband had had both his vocal cords accidentally cut during a thyroidectomy, and she was reaching out to others in the group for advice and support. One of the responses said:
“Just to recount my experience with a thyroidechtomy [sic], it actually *expanded* my vocal range. I'm a music major, and I had to sing simple exercises for my classes, and I found I could sing easier.”
There was my answer. Sometimes neck surgery makes your voice better.
I’m amazed at how God works so quickly and so efficiently in our lives. I asked a question in the middle of the night, and God had someone somewhere answer it for me via the Internet the next morning. WOW. God is high-tech. God is fast. God is good.
Yesterday while Jack and I were driving home from my parents’ house after having a birthday dinner for my dad, I was moved to tell Jack how even though I have to have another surgery, I’ve never felt closer to God or more taken care of by Him or more comforted by Him, and that sometimes even when we might not think that what’s happening in our lives is good, it’s for our good, and God won’t let anything happen to us that He doesn’t have a reason for. I went into a little more detail, and I thought his eyes might have started to glaze over (I took a peek in the rearview mirror), and I asked him, “What do you think of that?” and he replied right away, “I think if I tried playing baseball again, I might like it better.”
And that was that.
So I switched to his topic and hoped my topic had sunk into his brain somehow, and we talked a little more about baseball and how yes, it was probably a good idea to try it again, maybe play Little League this time instead of Pony Baseball.
My dear friend, Diane, when I sent her an e-mail telling her about this exchange between me and Jack, had a pearl of wisdom to offer me that had not occurred to me: “This is so cute. But maybe he's interested in trying baseball because he feels God won't let anything happen to him (like being scared or self-conscious). Maybe it really did sink in.”
I hadn’t seen that Jack’s apparent subject change might not have been a subject change at all—just a continuation on the same theme—that God will protect you no matter what, and if you trust in Him, everything will be fine, and we don’t have to worry about things. If that’s the case, if that’s what Jack meant, I think it’s amazing that an 8-year-old can extrapolate like that—especially as it relates to God and His awesome power.
What’s more, my husband’s response to the anecdote about Jack/baseball/God was sweet and tender and thoughtful (and a little self-deprecating): “That is interesting. Last night I looked at the fridge and saw his baseball picture. It made me sad thinking of that whole ordeal and I felt like he was traumatized by the whole thing and the coach. If I was going to do that over again, I would have pulled him out at the first inkling. I moved the picture down and highlighted his soccer pictures cause seeing it makes me sad. The fact that he is considering playing baseball again after all that tells me something about his character. He has more character than I have ever had.”
While this may be a leap, I can’t help but think that Pommy is slowly coming to the Lord.
Dogs Sense Something?
The dogs are treating me differently. They are being extra sweet and loving and caring. I know that must sound weird, but I can feel it in my bones. They sense something different about me. It could be that they can smell the 2 mCi radioactive iodine I was given last Wednesday for the whole-body scan—it could be something physical and olfactory, and for dogs, this would be very interesting—a new smell. They are definitely sniffing me more--and more tentatively since last week.
I’ve read things about dogs sensing cancer and other illnesses in their owners. I saw a “Dog Whisperer” episode once where a dog could sense when his owner was going to have a seizure (or something like this), and the dog was able to let the owner know well in advance, and the owner could take their medicine to prevent it…something like that. So I do believe that dogs have a sense about these things.
Speaking of senses, my senses are all heightened in this stage. I wonder how hypothyroid I am. I’m going to check my “coming back from hypothyroid” notes from last year after my treatment dose of RAI and see how long it took me to get from super hypo (TSH>60) to suppressed (TSH <.10). In 6 weeks, I was down to a TSH of .06 on 125 mcg Synthroid. So it may take me 6 weeks to get suppressed on 112 mcg, which is the dose I am currently taking.
Wondering about vocal improvement
I love singing. I have always loved singing. My sisters and I have always enjoyed singing in the car, especially on road trips to San Francisco, which we did a few times as young adults. I have no idea if my voice is decent or even mediocre, but I know I love singing. I sang in choir in high school, I had to sing a capella in front of my debate class in 12th grade, I took a voice class after my separation from my first husband (during that period of time when I was of the mind that “I’m gonna do all the stuff I’ve always wanted to do”), and a few years before my thyroid cancer diagnosis, I had reconnected with singing in a more meaningful way—this time occasionally singing in the choir at church.
I have never felt such joy as I experience while singing in the choir. I feel a meaningfulness and a clarity of purpose and a purity when I am singing to my Savior—a feeling of oneness and truth that I haven’t experienced with any other type of singing, or with any other way of connecting to God, either. It’s when I’m singing the alto part of “I Will Rise” with the Easter choir that I feel the most connected to Jesus. It’s the purest joy I’ve ever felt.
Sunday night, April 19, 2009, was my rock bottom as far as feeling bad in my hypothyroid state. I’d taken a ½ of a 12 mg Cytomel, a fast-acting thyroid hormone with a short half-life, is prescribed to thyroid cancer patients to take while they are going hypothyroid and while they are coming back from hypothyroid, to ease the symptoms of fatigue and lethargy that sometimes come along with going hypo.
I found out Sunday night that I am a person who doesn’t tolerate Cytomel well at all. Even taking ½ a pill, which is ¼ the usual daily dose, it gave me heart palpitations, racing thoughts, anxiety, insomnia worse than I already had it in my hypo state, and my eyes were racing back and forth under my eyelids as I laid there in bed all night trying to sleep but unable. I almost felt like I was “on drugs.” Like the way you might feel if you took an overdose of something. It was an awful feeling, of being out of control of my body, of wishing I hadn’t taken the Cytomel (I think I took it in the afternoon, which is totally fine for most people, but not me), of wishing I could sleep.
However, over the last 2 weeks or so when my insomnia has been its worst, there have been a few positives come out of it. I think a lot more at night, and I plan to do nice things for people. I make long-range goals for myself, I plan to volunteer at nursing homes and help the poor and destitute. (In the past I have felt this way often when I exercise. Running on the treadmill often results in me planning to buy flowers for several people and tell them how much they mean to me. Sometimes I act on the plans I make, but often I do not.)
Back to Sunday night. One of the things I wondered while laying in bed, mind racing, is whether there has ever been anyone whose voice/vocal cords have actually improved as a result of neck/thyroid/thyroid cancer/neck dissection surgery. It’s not uncommon for thyroid surgeries to result in vocal cord damage or paralysis—temporary or permanent—and I always felt lucky to have dodged that bullet in my first surgery because I love singing so much. So there I lay, wondering if anyone’s voice had actually improved.
The next morning, while reading messages on the thyca listserv, I noticed a message titled “Vocal Cord Paralysis.” It was a thread that had been started by a woman whose husband had had both his vocal cords accidentally cut during a thyroidectomy, and she was reaching out to others in the group for advice and support. One of the responses said:
“Just to recount my experience with a thyroidechtomy [sic], it actually *expanded* my vocal range. I'm a music major, and I had to sing simple exercises for my classes, and I found I could sing easier.”
There was my answer. Sometimes neck surgery makes your voice better.
I’m amazed at how God works so quickly and so efficiently in our lives. I asked a question in the middle of the night, and God had someone somewhere answer it for me via the Internet the next morning. WOW. God is high-tech. God is fast. God is good.
Monday, April 20, 2009
A Faith Builder?
Faith Builder?
I have been thinking about all this thyroid cancer stuff and how easy it has been to deal with. Things like finding a surgeon, making dozens--no, hundreds--of phone calls to people in nuclear medicine departments, at pathology labs, hospitals, medical centers, doctor’s offices, Aetna HMO people, ultrasound techs, etc…. The list is long.
Last week I started hearing myself say to people that this whole experience has been a faith builder, but then I realized when I said it to my mom today that it really isn’t my faith He’s building. Because faith is believing without seeing, as the sermon on Sunday reminded me. Faith is believing even though you have not seen.
“Jesus said to him, ‘Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.’
“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through his name.
--John 20:29-30, American King James version
I have seen and therefore I believe more. He’s proving to me He’s real. He’s proving to me He’s in control. The more I let go, the easier it gets. The more I trust Him, the easier everything is. Red tape falls to the ground. Well-known USC surgeons who have no idea who I am drop whatever they’re doing on a Sunday afternoon to Blackberry me in response to an e-mail and say yes, they’d be happy to meet with me to evaluate my case.
How awesome is our God?
I’ll tell you how awesome. Awesome enough that I don’t have to worry whether I’ll be OK, whether I’ll survive the surgery, whether the scar will be gross, whether there will be complications. He is awesome enough that I can breathe through my nose for the first time in years. You have no idea how good this feels after a lifetime of sinus problems and almost always breathing through my mouth, waking up every morning with a bone-dry mouth and a nose full of snot and 50 sneezes to start the day. All this without Claritin! Imagine that!
I just can't contain my sheer joy at how God is working this out for me. I've never felt closer to Him, and I've never trusted Him more, and I told Jack all of this tonight, and it felt so good to witness to Jack (8 years old now, and he's been aware of the "cancer" thing from the start) directly and openly and honestly. There is so much good that can come out of trials, it's amazing. I hope and pray that I will continue to be a good example for my kids through this. To show them what it looks like when someone gives it to God, to show reliance on Him, to show complete openness to His will, WHATEVER THAT MAY BE.
Sometimes the Lord just has you opening your mouth and saying the name of Jesus a lot more than other times, and for me these are the times I rarely have it shut.
I have been thinking about all this thyroid cancer stuff and how easy it has been to deal with. Things like finding a surgeon, making dozens--no, hundreds--of phone calls to people in nuclear medicine departments, at pathology labs, hospitals, medical centers, doctor’s offices, Aetna HMO people, ultrasound techs, etc…. The list is long.
Last week I started hearing myself say to people that this whole experience has been a faith builder, but then I realized when I said it to my mom today that it really isn’t my faith He’s building. Because faith is believing without seeing, as the sermon on Sunday reminded me. Faith is believing even though you have not seen.
“Jesus said to him, ‘Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.’
“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through his name.
--John 20:29-30, American King James version
I have seen and therefore I believe more. He’s proving to me He’s real. He’s proving to me He’s in control. The more I let go, the easier it gets. The more I trust Him, the easier everything is. Red tape falls to the ground. Well-known USC surgeons who have no idea who I am drop whatever they’re doing on a Sunday afternoon to Blackberry me in response to an e-mail and say yes, they’d be happy to meet with me to evaluate my case.
How awesome is our God?
I’ll tell you how awesome. Awesome enough that I don’t have to worry whether I’ll be OK, whether I’ll survive the surgery, whether the scar will be gross, whether there will be complications. He is awesome enough that I can breathe through my nose for the first time in years. You have no idea how good this feels after a lifetime of sinus problems and almost always breathing through my mouth, waking up every morning with a bone-dry mouth and a nose full of snot and 50 sneezes to start the day. All this without Claritin! Imagine that!
I just can't contain my sheer joy at how God is working this out for me. I've never felt closer to Him, and I've never trusted Him more, and I told Jack all of this tonight, and it felt so good to witness to Jack (8 years old now, and he's been aware of the "cancer" thing from the start) directly and openly and honestly. There is so much good that can come out of trials, it's amazing. I hope and pray that I will continue to be a good example for my kids through this. To show them what it looks like when someone gives it to God, to show reliance on Him, to show complete openness to His will, WHATEVER THAT MAY BE.
Sometimes the Lord just has you opening your mouth and saying the name of Jesus a lot more than other times, and for me these are the times I rarely have it shut.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Hypo Heaven? Really?
I am calmer and more rational, less emotional. Don’t cry nearly as easily. In fact, I don’t think I’ve cried at all in the past month. Able to think more clearly, put thoughts together better, be more articulate, have a sense of humor, not be so uptight, not be so bitchy to Pommy. Not sweaty all the time. More even-tempered. Tired, yes. But the personality changes that have come along with hypo are too stinkin’ good to believe. I want to hold on to these changes even when I go back to being clinically hyperthyroid, which I have to do as part of thyroid cancer prevention.
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