So I didn't exactly wake up as early as I had hoped for the drive up to LA for the conference, but I made it in time for the first session. It was an 'Open mike', where you could meet other ThyCans and hear their stories. I was surprised at the number of Medullary thyroid cancer survivors in my session - there were four. I have never met a ThyCan with anything other than Papillary or Follicular/Hurthle cell ThyCa, so I was a bit overwhelmed since I don't know anything about it. One guy had Medullary and Hurthle cell. There was also a 38 year survivor, and another guy, from Portugal, with Hurthle cell carcinoma. There was a married couple that were both diagnosed this year with ThyCa. They grew up in a area close to I think a rocket testing facility here in California, so they wonder if their cases are environmental, not hereditary.
During the lunch break I ran into a couple of members from my support group, so I caught up with them as we picked up our box lunches. Then I found two more members in the lunch session I went to. I have to say that some of the session titles are a bit misleading. Like the Advances in Research session was presented by an Oncologist that does trials for differentiated (Pap/Foll/hurthle) and medullary thyca, when I thought it was going to be about general research advances. It was very enlightening to hear about the clinical side of thyroid drug trials which are generally for those that can no longer be treated by RAI, thyroid hormone suppression, or surgery. I hope I never get to that stage, but if I do, I think I will seek out the speaker, who works at PENN.
There was so much that was covered by each speaker, I don't know if any of my notes make any sense at this point.
I went to dinner with one of the members from my support group. We started our journeys around the same time last year. She attended last year's conference. She told me, during the lunch session on Familial Pap/Foll ThyCa, that Hurthle cell is considered to be progression from Papillary ThyCa. The leader of that session said that Anaplastic ThyCa is the result from untreated Pap ThyCa. Wow. I had no idea how these were related. Anyway, we took a trolley tour bus down to Manhattan Beach for dinner, ending up at a restaurant called LA Food Show. Not bad.
Tomorrow, I am looking forward to the session on Alternative treatments.
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