My friend who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer said it well, "Welcome to the club no one wants to be a member of!" I'm now a member of the "I have cancer club". It still shocks me to think that thought. Of course I am sure that each of the 692,000 women who join this club every year and the 745,180 men (2008 stats) feel exactly as I do. Only 4% of the women have thyroid cancer and only 5% of them have medullary thyroid cancer like I do. So about 1384 cases like mine are diagnosed each year. I like to be unique! I've always felt some pride in my boring medical history; well it is boring no longer!
The surgeon reported that there was no lymph node involvement also that the tumor was small (1.5 cm) and came out very easily. All that is good news. So I am stage 1. According to the stats 5 year survival rate for this type of cancer at this stage is 100%! So I am lucky. This morning I had blood work to get a base line of something called calcitonin. In a couple of months, I'll be tested again and the amount of calcitonin should be going down and should keep going down. As long as it keeps decreasing I'm great. If that number goes up then they will have to do more tests. My doctor says with my generally good health and the stage of the tumor she has every reason to give me an 'excellent prognosis'!
So I'm happy today! I'm busy planning a fall 60th birthday trip to hopefully see our beloved FC Barcelona play soccer in Barcelona! And thinking of starting teaching seminary again in a 10 days. Life is good!
"I like living. I have sometimes been wilding despairing, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."
Agatha Christie, An Autobiography.
The surgeon reported that there was no lymph node involvement also that the tumor was small (1.5 cm) and came out very easily. All that is good news. So I am stage 1. According to the stats 5 year survival rate for this type of cancer at this stage is 100%! So I am lucky. This morning I had blood work to get a base line of something called calcitonin. In a couple of months, I'll be tested again and the amount of calcitonin should be going down and should keep going down. As long as it keeps decreasing I'm great. If that number goes up then they will have to do more tests. My doctor says with my generally good health and the stage of the tumor she has every reason to give me an 'excellent prognosis'!
So I'm happy today! I'm busy planning a fall 60th birthday trip to hopefully see our beloved FC Barcelona play soccer in Barcelona! And thinking of starting teaching seminary again in a 10 days. Life is good!
"I like living. I have sometimes been wilding despairing, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."
Agatha Christie, An Autobiography.
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