Benching cancer

Break out the almond milk! Unscrew the baby food jars! Juice the spinach! 

I am cancer free!

But wait, why are we celebrating? I thought she already knew she was cancer free?

Fear not, you aren't losing it.

After my thyroidectomy, the surgeon told me about the cancer and indicated that he had removed all traces in my thyroid. It wasn't until I returned home and had my one-week post surgery appointment with my endocrinologist that he gently explained that I wasn't entirely off the hook. Thyroid cancer affects the thyroid, parathyroids and lymph nodes, so I had really only eliminated one of the options. In addition, I was also told that the best surgeon can only remove 98% of your thyroid and all it takes is one cell to keep the cancer going.

Oh.

Thyroid hormones have an extremely long half life, which, in a nutshell, means that they stay in your body for a long time. Due to this lengthy half life, I had to wait a month post-surgery before we could do any tests to see if I was still carrying cancer of any form. If we did the test too close to surgery, it would definitely still detect cancer being present, even if it was no longer there. Unlike many other forms of cancer, thyroid cancer can be detected by elevated levels of thyroglobulin, which is carried in your blood. This blood test was done a week ago and my doctor just received the results. Somehow I still have hair and fingernails?

I had (past tense! Woohoo!) papillary carcinoma of the thyroid, which is one of four types of thyroid cancer. Obviously cancer in any shape or form is not ideal, but if you have to pick one, I recommend "selecting" this slow growing and very treatable type.

The only downsides to papillary carcinoma (besides the obvious terrifying weirdness that you are growing something that could kill you) are that it tends to come back and if untreated it tends to go to the lungs and bones. So my endocrinologist and I will be on hyper alert for...well...the rest of my life. Weird. Even now, my thyroglobulin levels are not zero (which is obviously ideal)  but they aren't high enough to warrant radiation and seeing how my body takes FOREVER to accomplish anything, I may just need more time for the numbers to go down.

The numbers may also still be elevated because, as it turns out, I am allergic to the dyes used by pharmaceutical companies that distribute thyroid medicine. I was, therefore, likely not absorbing much synthetic thyroid hormone initially because I was allergic to the pills. Oops. To quote my endocrinologist, "Allergies to these dyes are very rare, so it makes sense for you." Touche dude, just add Yellow 6 and Yellow 10 to the list.

So there you have it, officially out of the starting line-up. Take a seat cancer, you've been benched.