Friday, September 23, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month
Did you know that September is Thyroid Cancer Awareness month?
According to the ThyCa.org, it started in 2000 as Thyroid Cancer Week. In 2003, it became Thyroid Cancer Month. It promotes awareness for early detection, care/treatment, and research for all forms of thyroid cancer.
Thyroid cancer is one of the fasting growing cancers in the US. Last year, I was just one of roughly 40,000 people that were estimated to be diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2010; this year, that number is expected to increase, which has happened in recent years. Unfortunately, thyroid cancer is often labeled by our doctors and surgeons as 'the good cancer' because the 5-year survival statistics are better than those for breast and lung cancers. All I can say is there is nothing good about having to take replacement thyroid hormone for the rest of you life after having to go through surgery and in some cases a round of radiation. Nothing. Despite how slow growing this form of cancer is, people still die from it every year. Nothing good there either.
If you would like to learn more about Thyroid Cancer, please take a look at the following links:
* ThyCa.org
* About.com Thyroid Disease
According to the ThyCa.org, it started in 2000 as Thyroid Cancer Week. In 2003, it became Thyroid Cancer Month. It promotes awareness for early detection, care/treatment, and research for all forms of thyroid cancer.
Thyroid cancer is one of the fasting growing cancers in the US. Last year, I was just one of roughly 40,000 people that were estimated to be diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2010; this year, that number is expected to increase, which has happened in recent years. Unfortunately, thyroid cancer is often labeled by our doctors and surgeons as 'the good cancer' because the 5-year survival statistics are better than those for breast and lung cancers. All I can say is there is nothing good about having to take replacement thyroid hormone for the rest of you life after having to go through surgery and in some cases a round of radiation. Nothing. Despite how slow growing this form of cancer is, people still die from it every year. Nothing good there either.
If you would like to learn more about Thyroid Cancer, please take a look at the following links:
* ThyCa.org
* About.com Thyroid Disease
Sunday, September 11, 2011
10 years later 9/11/11
The first time I visited NYC was the summer of 1993. I never made it back until the fall of 2007. On my return trip, at the top of my list was to see "Ground Zero".
I remember exactly what I was doing 10 years ago. I was living in San Francisco at the time. I got up for work that day, was mentally preparing for an interview, when I heard a lot of commotion on the radio, so I turned on the TV. They were replaying the first tower getting hit. "WTF?!?" was pretty much the only thing going through my head. The news coverage showed many New Yorkers staring in amazement, like the rest of the country was. I watched for a few minutes, but had to get ready for work and run to catch BART. At the time I was working in Oakland. Somehow, I made it on BART before they closed it down. I got to work and there were maybe 10 people there. I was told to go home. I tried to call my interview contact, but that office was closed. Every office in San Francisco and Oakland was closed.
10 years later, I'm back in SoCal. I am one-year thyroid cancer survivor. 10 years later, many of those first responders at 'ground zero' are suffering from many ailments and diseases, among them cancer. More specifically, thyroid cancer. I found this article last year (here). I'll never know how or why I got thyroid cancer, or how or why anyone gets cancer, but I think it is pretty clear that there are environmental causes. Mostly from radioactive fall out (Chernobyl, Hiroshima, and most likely from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station disaster earlier this year). Kinda crazy how no good deed goes unpunished. I think regardless of what the outcome, many of us would have done whatever we could to help if we were there, live with the consequences later.
When I made it back to NYC in 2007, I took as many pictures of "Ground Zero" that I could. Here are some of my favorite shots from that visit:
I remember exactly what I was doing 10 years ago. I was living in San Francisco at the time. I got up for work that day, was mentally preparing for an interview, when I heard a lot of commotion on the radio, so I turned on the TV. They were replaying the first tower getting hit. "WTF?!?" was pretty much the only thing going through my head. The news coverage showed many New Yorkers staring in amazement, like the rest of the country was. I watched for a few minutes, but had to get ready for work and run to catch BART. At the time I was working in Oakland. Somehow, I made it on BART before they closed it down. I got to work and there were maybe 10 people there. I was told to go home. I tried to call my interview contact, but that office was closed. Every office in San Francisco and Oakland was closed.
10 years later, I'm back in SoCal. I am one-year thyroid cancer survivor. 10 years later, many of those first responders at 'ground zero' are suffering from many ailments and diseases, among them cancer. More specifically, thyroid cancer. I found this article last year (here). I'll never know how or why I got thyroid cancer, or how or why anyone gets cancer, but I think it is pretty clear that there are environmental causes. Mostly from radioactive fall out (Chernobyl, Hiroshima, and most likely from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station disaster earlier this year). Kinda crazy how no good deed goes unpunished. I think regardless of what the outcome, many of us would have done whatever we could to help if we were there, live with the consequences later.
When I made it back to NYC in 2007, I took as many pictures of "Ground Zero" that I could. Here are some of my favorite shots from that visit:
Friday, September 9, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
How does my neck look - 9/6/11
I was able to swap out my old phone for a new phone this afternoon. As a result, I was late for my ThyCa support group meeting this evening. I hate missing these monthly meetings, so at least I only missed 30 minutes. We had one new member, a lady that has been on her journey for seven years, the whole time battling hurthle cell carcinoma. I missed her intro, so I asked her about her diagnosis after the meeting. She said they caught it too late as it had already entered her blood stream - she has had metastasis to her bones and is currently receiving external beam radiation treatments in two of the affected areas. Wow. It was a lot to take in, especially since my 1-yr WBS and blood work came back clear. Now more than ever before I feel blessed that my thyroid cancer was discovered and treated as early as it was. There aren't that many ThyCans with HCC, so as much as I am glad to have other ThyCans with HCC in my support groups (local and listserv), it is really humbling to see someone on the extreme opposite end of HCC from me. She goes to MD Anderson for treatment, so I think I know which cancer center I will be heading to if I ever have HCC recurrence.
I was looking forward to taking my first neck photo with my replacement cell phone. I had high hopes for it, but guess what? - the red tinge is still there! So all I can think of is that it must be the lighting - maybe there isn't light enough in my bathroom? I'll try to take more photos at work, or elsewhere, I guess. It is just really disappointing that this seems to be an issue with the phone itself. Ugh! I can't be the only person having this problem.
Anyway, how does my neck look?
I was looking forward to taking my first neck photo with my replacement cell phone. I had high hopes for it, but guess what? - the red tinge is still there! So all I can think of is that it must be the lighting - maybe there isn't light enough in my bathroom? I'll try to take more photos at work, or elsewhere, I guess. It is just really disappointing that this seems to be an issue with the phone itself. Ugh! I can't be the only person having this problem.
Anyway, how does my neck look?
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