Incredibly Blessed

It is amazing how in less than two weeks I can go from getting diagnosed with cancer, to feeling like one of the most incredibly blessed people on the planet... and no my cancer diagnosis has not changed.

I have been meaning to write a blog since I met with the surgeon on Wednesday, but I have not had a chance to sit down and do so.

Now that I finally have time, here is what has been going on:

• Blessing #1: After meeting with the surgeon, it looks like my cancer has not metastasized and spread to my lymphnodes. 
• Blessing #2: while I hate the circumstances that have led to this blessing, as I would never wish anyone else to be in my position, I will be the 3rd pregnant thyroid cancer patient my surgeon has operated on this month, so I feel very comfortable with her experience. 
• Blessing #3: After making an offer on our dream house last week we had to move up our timeline for listing our house, so after a week of frantic cleaning and packing we had pictures on Thursday, listed it on Friday morning, and by Friday night had 3 showings, followed by like 7 more yesterday, and like 3 more today (I lost count at some point, all I know is we had to be gone pretty much all weekend to allow for showings). Having so much interest made for a very stressful weekend, but was such a blessing as it reassured me we would be able to sell our house before the contingency ran out on the new house. 
• Blessing #4: Early this morning we got an offer. For 10% more than asking price!!! I about fell out of bed when I read it. I was going to be excited for simply a full price offer, to get more than that is SUCH a blessing. 

I am so happy and it is such a great feeling that to know that through everything God is watching over us and looking out for us. While it is hard to see it sometime, especially with everything going on, I have been reassured that "All things work together for good for those who love him" (Rom 8:28)

In other news, we have a date for my surgery. I will be having a Total Thyroidectomy and possible central neck dissection (I think they should have renamed that surgery to something less scary sounding) on September 14th at 1:30pm. I will be in the hospital at least overnight, but as we are both doing good then we will get to go home the next day.

I do have a couple prayer requests for the coming days and weeks if you are looking for something specific to pray for:

• Continued peace about everything. I have been pretty good so far (I think the house stuff has been an awesome distraction)
• That our sellers will be willing to change the closing date. We originally were set to close on Sept 30th, but our buyer would like to close on Sept 3rd. If they aren't willing to change we will be homeless for a few weeks in the interim, while I am going to be having and recovering from surgery. 
• That we will pass our inspection and have our house appraise for the selling price. Since it is quite a bit more than we were asking and what other houses on our block have sold for I am a little nervous about the appraisal. 
• That all financing for ourselves and buyers will go through with no issues. And we will be able to get packed up and moved by Sept 3rd with everything we have going on. 
• I have my MFM appt on Tuesday. Pray that everything looks good with baby and that everything looks good to go ahead with surgery. 
• And then the obvious, prayers for surgery itself. Pray that there is no unexpected metastases and that the tumor is not invading my vocal nerves too bad (it looked like it might be on the ultrasound), and the Dr.is able to remove it with no complications. 

Thank you for your prayers and support. I really never thought having so many people praying and thinking about you would help, but it really does. People keep asking what they can do, and I am realizing, that is enough. Knowing people are thinking about me and care, has made a world of difference and I feel like one of the most blessed people on the planet right now.  

You can never really be too busy....

So we decided this weekend that we didn't have near enough going on in our life right now and we needed to add selling our house in the next 30 days to the mix.

We had been intending to list ours next week, and had just started looking at houses. We went to look at our first house this weekend and fell in love. It is everything we have been looking for in a house (except it doesn't have a fireplace). It is still close to town, but feels like it is in the middle of the country. It is big enough, with plenty of storage and space. It is perfect.... So we made an offer. They were ok with the contingency that our house sells, but only gave us 30 days. So we have to ramp up into high gear. EEK!!!

So this week will consist of Realtor tonight, Home inspection tomorrow, Surgeon (and haircut) on Wednesday, Pictures of our house on Thursday, Fri-Sun will be cleaning and packing and getting ready for showings, Monday a cleaning company is coming to deep clean, Tuesday is Appt with high risk OB... and that is just what is planned so far. A week ago none of this was on my agenda.

At my last midwife appt she told me that this was the "boring time of pregnancy". In the 9 days since then I realized that she was no where near correct for this pregnancy. But I feel that in all of this I am blessed. I have something good and exciting to keep me moving forward each day. I don't have time to be stressed. All last week I was barely functioning. Just doing the minimums for work and wallowing in self pity. This week I have renewed energy. I know I don't have time to sit down and feel sorry for myself. There are wonderful things going on. We found our dream house! They say if you want something done, ask a busy person. When you have everything going on you keep yourself going, there is no time to sit and think. It is just one foot in front of the other, keep moving forward.

I am glad I had time to do so much thinking the last few weeks. Now I am in get up and do mode... and boy do I have a lot to do right now :-)

Planning for the unknown: An impossible (hypothetical) decision

 Preface:

The following post was written a couple weeks ago when I was just beginning to think though everything.

I have been thinking about if I want to post it. I don't want to change it because it was what I was thinking about at that time and I don't want to lose that. But, in another sense I realized while much of what I was saying was true, it really was hypothetical. Pretty much all of the facts I know now are the same, but at the time I didn't take into account how much feelings and emotions can play into a decision. I didn't REALLY believe it would happen, so I wasn't too emotional. I felt the stress and emotion that comes with  the possibility of having to make a decision of that magnitude, but not the full range of emotions that comes with the decision itself. The hypothetical is a much easier decision than the reality. 

I didn't plan for the fear and other emotions that have come into play. They aren't rational, but that doesn't mean they aren't important. We are given emotion and instincts for a reason. I don't think that means the rational needs to be removed from the situation, but how you feel is just as important of a factor. During my last pregnancy I had a strong feeling my son was a boy.  There was no tangible reason, but that doesn't mean I didn't know. 

In that same regard, ever since hearing the news, my mama bear instincts and/or fear and/or some other unnamed emotion is making me seriously doubt what I want to do. I can't tell if it is a gut feeling I should listen to or just fear. I plan to move forward with a second trimester surgery at this point, because I can always change my mind and push it back. From now until surgery I will just keep doing what I have been doing. Waiting, and thinking, and praying, and getting more information. And I pray that at some point between now and then, I get peace about a decision. So far that plan has never steered me wrong and God has always given me peace in those decisions. Although I will say, this decision feels much different and more difficult than any decision I have had to make to this point.

Cancer it is

So I found out yesterday what I had been hoping I wouldn't.  My biopsy showed cancer. Apparently no matter how much you prepare for the worst and plan for it to happen, you still think it won't. It's like your brain tricks itself into thinking that since you prepared you won't need it, Murphy's law. Like a teacher lets a "pop quiz" leak to the class so they will study, but then doesn't give it to them. Since they studied and knew the material, she didn't need the test.

A couple things that have come to light in the 24 or so hours since I found out:

• No matter how much you mentally prepare, you are never mentally prepared. 
• You will second guess every decision you thought about and researched when it was just a hypothetical. 
• It is worse to have to tell people the news than to hear the news yourself. It is exhausting to try to care about how other people feel and want to make them feel better about it when you don't know how to make yourself feel better. 
• I don't think it is really possible to say the "right thing". There is a pretty much  non-existent line between ignoring it and downplaying it too much and caring and talking about it too much, and the line moves every 5 seconds. I don't want you to ignore it and pretend like it is nothing, but I don't want you to make a big deal out of it either. Also, I know people want to "Do something to help" Imagine how I feel. And as much as I want you to be able to help and feel needed... I dont know what you can do to help and really don't want to try to think of something. I feel selfish, but I really don't care or want to think about how you feel right now.
• I understand people have a lot of questions. So do I, but it is frustrating to be asked questions you don't know the answer to.  It makes me feel worse because I know I am the one talking to doctors, and can ask all the questions. I am already beating myself up over not asking enough questions and getting more answers, but you don't think about questions at the time. My mind was (and is) in a haze. I know there are a million questions I should have and could have asked. Trust me. Being reminded doesn't help.

So now that I have ranted about that...

The answers I do have:

• I have some sort of thyroid cancer. (I think papillary but not 100% sure or know if the Dr. knows for sure yet.
• At this point I am planning to have it removed in the next 10 weeks (during my 2nd trimester). They will take out my whole thyroid and I will be on throid meds forever.
• I might need further radioactive iodine treatment.  I am not sure when I will know about that. I think after surgery. 
• I meet with the surgeon July 29th. So I will know more then (and will have a list of all my questions and try to get as many answers as I can). 

I have another blog post that I wrote a few weeks ago, that I didn't really plan on ever posting. (I thought only if I got a bad result, but I was hoping I wouldn't.) I will probably post that in the future, it goes though my options and what I have been thinking about them. I also planned to do one to talk about the biopsy  and how that went... but not now. (long story short- you don't get lidocaine when you get a biopsy while pregnant...)

And to lighten the mood: Belly pic

 

16 weeks

My Handsome boy

Is it or isn't it?

My appointment with the endocrinologist was June 26th. As someone who has never waited for an appointment that was not exciting or pretty routine, it is infinitely more stressful. Part of you wants them to hurry up and part of you wants them to never call your name. You are focusing too hard on not crying, because you don't even know what is going on yet.

You get called back for vitals from the nurse, and she asks "Do you have any questions?" Ha...Ha...Ha....

So we get back to the room and wait...for like 30 minutes...it was awful. But finally the Dr. gets there. He examines me, and apparently I pass all of his tests. (Yay!?) Then he gets to my ultrasound results. The "good news" is that what the sonographer called microcalcifications might not be. Longish story short apparently there are 2 things that will show up as "bright spots" on an ultrasound. Mircocalcifications (MCs) and colloid crystals (CCs). MC are almost always cancer, CCs, are almost always not. MCs look like a period, CCs look like a comma. Here are some pictures supplied by Google for reference.

Colloid Crystals

Microcalcifications

As you can see, they are very hard to distinguish between the two. The Dr. said that some looked like they had a tail and some didn't. He was going to send me for a biopsy of both nodules, and it could really go either way. Cancer or not, he wouldn't be surprised.  But the more he talked the more he sounded like surgery was in my future, and that he was just trying to give me a "non-cancer" straw to grasp at.

He basically said, if it is not cancer, then we do nothing since all my levels are normal. If it is then we take out my thyroid. I could either do it during my second trimester or after baby is born. Both have about the same risk, and I would be on hormone replacement for the rest of my life. I might have to do radioactive iodine, but that could wait until after I was done nursing. He made it all sound like it wasn't a big deal at all.

Here are the "good news" things I took away that day:

• It still could not be cancer
• If it is cancer there is a 99% survival rate.
• It isn't a kind of cancer that I would need chemo and lose my hair.
• My baby is not in any real danger right now. 

So... I guess all in all, it could have been a worse visit....Now it is just waiting for the biopsy and results. My biopsy is scheduled for July 19th.

(this post was written July 8th)

Thyroid Ultrasound

So a few days after my first pre-natal appointment, I had yet another ultrasound, but this time I didn't get to see my baby. This one was on my neck. I have to say, with this being my first non-baby US the experience is quite a bit different. The atmosphere in the room is not one of excitement. There are no pictures taken to be shared, and you aren't looking excitedly at the screen.

I had to lie on the table and stare at the ceiling without swallowing. (Thankfully that really wasn't an issue as my mouth was too dry to swallow). It is also a little hard to breathe with someone pushing on your neck, while nervous and laying down, but it is possible (in case you were wondering).

I tried to watch the screen out of the corner of my eye, but after a few minutes my eyes started to hurt, and then the tech got on to me for moving my head so she couldn't get a clear picture, so no matter how good I might be at reading ultrasounds, I had very little to go on. Here is what I had:

• It took about 30 minutes, when I had read online it took about 15.
• From the corner of my eye it looked like there was bloodflow to/through the nodule, which I assume is not good.
• She changed probes 3 times. I don't know if that is normal, but it has never happened during a baby US. 
• The ultrasound tech looked concerned if I had to guess, and she immediately went and told to radiologist what she found before she said I could go. 

Not much to go on, but I didn't leave feeling comforted or reassured that this was "probably nothing". My midwife was supposed to call and let me know anything I needed to.

On the way home I called my aunt to talk and catch up. I told her everything I had to go on, and said I know it probably doesn't mean anything, and I was just being paranoid. I told her I wouldn't worry unless they called and magically had an opening for the endocrinologist. (My appt was scheduled for 2 months away on Aug19th, their first available appointment). I put it from my mind and did my best not to worry.

However, Murphy's Law strikes again.  That afternoon I picked up the little man from daycare and then went to go pick up Adam. When I arrived at daycare I was on the phone with my best friend, so I just left it in the car on bluetooth while I ran in to grab him. Of course in the 2 minutes I was inside, my midwife calls.

Things you know are not a good sign when you get a message from a Dr.:

• She starts to tell you something 3 times and then interrupts herself and says call me. 
• She tells you to call her at anytime that evening. She will be waiting for your call.
• And that Endo, who didn't have an appt free until 2 months from now, magically had a cancellation and you have an appointment for the next morning.

I immediately called her back, but seeing as it was 5:15, I had to go through the after hours service, who could only call the on call midwife (not mine) and have the on call midwife call mine and have her call me. I finally heard from her after an agonizing 2 hours.

She said "One of my nodules was very concerning". Wait- ONE of? Apparently I have 2 large nodules on my thyroid.

The Ultrasound report puts it "nice" and concisely.  

The right lobe measures 6.8 x 2.0 x 1.7 cm. A heterogeneous, mixed cystic/solid nodule containing micropapillary calcifications is seen in the mid right thyroid gland. This measures 2.6 x 2.4 x 2.2 cm. 

The left lobe measures 6.6 x 1.7 x 1.6 cm. A mixed cystic/solid nodule measuring 1.5 x 1.0 x 2.6 cm is seen in the left lower pole.  

Impression: Bilateral thyroid nodules as above. Both meet sonographic criteria for fine needle aspiration/biopsy. The right nodule is highly suspicious.

In case you weren't sure, "highly suspicious" are words that make you heart stop a little when about a lump in your body...especially when you are pregnant.

 I guess on the bright side, I would have answers sooner rather than later because of that "fortuitous" cancellation......

Here is a quick 3d model of the size of each nodule for reference...

(This post was written July 8)

Unexpected growth...

With this pregnancy I decided to change doctors. I loved my old doctor, but I didn't like my birth experience with the hospital or the other doctors in her practice when she wasn't on call. So I decided to change to a midwife practice this time around. It still operates at a major hospital, where I will deliver, and I will still have a supervising OB, but the care is more holistic. I feel this is yet another way God is taking care of me. I went in for my intake appt, which was just confirming pregnancy, blood work and meeting with the nurse, and scheduled my first ultrasound. My US showed my due date to be 1/1/16, and my LMP has my due date as 1/5/15. The midwives are going to use the January 5th date becuase that give me as much time as possible without getting induced. I, personally, am going off the January 1st date, because it is a more fun due date, and I think probably a little more accurate.

I had my first real visit with the Midwife at right around 12 weeks. She was great and I really liked her. I know that moving was the best decision. Unlike my previous OB, my exam was not just ask about weight gain, diet, baby's heart beat and measuring fundal height. She seemed to care more about me as a mother, not just me as a baby gestator.

One thing that solidified that was both good and bad. She examined my thyroid, and noticed that I had a fairly large nodule on it. She immediately ordered more blood work and a thyroid US. While worrisome, it really assured me that I made the right decision and that God was looking out for me. If I hadn't changed practices who knows when someone would have noticed it. I had previously noticed it, but I didn't think anything of it. I just thought I was feeling my thyroid. Thankfully, after some research (thanks Dr. Google!) I discovered that 90% of people have thyroid nodules, and 95% of those nodules are benign.

So I am being thankful right now in light of this possibly scary occurrence.
I will continue the story in my next post.

Here are the pictures from my first US.

(this post was written 7/8)