Chicago Marathon 2012

Chicago Marathon 2012
You Can Still Run For A Cause!

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Thyroid Cancer

After my last post I got to thinking (something I try not to do), and I said to my self, "Self, you didn't tell these people about your oh so exciting cancer diagnosis yet, how are they going to cope with the news you just suddenly sprang on them?". So heres my "how they discovered I have papillary carcinoma" story.

When I had my islet transplant I had a hematoma on my liver. It hurt like a sonofacrackwhore to put it nicely, and after two months it still hurt but not so much until I fell on my face or as Dr. Transplant put it. I fell on my liver.

I have this portable dvd player. I love it. It's cool, I often take it to Chicago with me but like many rechargeable battery powered electronic devices it needs to be plugged in occasionally to be, well, charged. So, I had it plugged in in the hallway because at the time I was living in an apartment designed by morons and there were hardly any electrical outlets in the living room but plenty in the hallway. go figure.

Anyway, I was walking down said hallway and the wire of my DVD player some how found itself wrapped around my ankle and I tripped trying to avoid damaging it and fell flat on my face. You'll be happy to know that my DVD player was fine, I however was not. My hemoglobin level two days later was 6, so they admitted me gave me some blood and did a ct scan. I was pissed! I had baseball tickets! I missed Thirsty Thursday, the best day of the week at minor league baseball, where beer and diet Pepsi are only 2 dollars drink! but I digress... ;)

The ct scan was supposed to be of my abdomen, but they did chest/abdomen accidentally and in doing so went up too high and caught my thyroid gland. I'm thinking Dr. Transplant is going to tell me all is well, go home, which he did eventually but then Dr. Endo calls me and says I need to have a needle biopsy of my thyroid and can I return to Chicago for that soon? Okay.

Short story long, the needle biopsy was inconclusive so they removed my thyroid gland and I had thyroid cancer. Now they keep doing blood work and ultrasounds to make sure its really gone.

That's my not so exciting cancer story. After my last set of labs / ultrasounds Dr ENT wants to see me. I'm not sure why really, from what I've read papillary carcinoma is about the easiest cancer to cure. Remove thyroid and you're good. soo the fact that Dr ENT wants to see me a year after surgery makes me curious, but not exactly nervous if you know what I mean.

Moral of my story is, even if my islets fail and I'm back on insulin with no hope of functional cure being functional any longer, I still have my cancer cure to be thankful for.

yayislets!

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