Exhausted. So much information to take in, again. I appreciate that a lot of the speakers either had thyroid cancer or thyroid disease.
Because there are no sessions specifically for Hurthle cell carcinoma, I tried to take good notes whenever it did come up in a session. Interesting that there seemed to be a disagreement as to whether or not HCC falls under Follicular ThyCa, or if it is a separate disease. I think I did get a better idea as to why my ENDO categorizes me as 'low risk' - they categorize by as many features as possible, so the fact that my main tumor was 3.2cm HCC wasn't the main determinant. They also take into account metastasis, vascular invasion, and RAI uptake outside of thyroid bed, among other things.
I stayed for part of a session on coping with and the gifts of thyroid cancer. One lady said that she 'didn't want to be anyone's hero because of her cancer, she just didn't want to have cancer'. Wow. I hate to say this, but she is living in denial. The sooner she can accept her cancer, the sooner she can move on with her life. She has cancer, it cannot be taken back; you cannot erase every second up to the point just before you were diagnosed. I think the first year is the hardest because you just don't know what to expect. But you will get through it, we all do. But you have to be strong. You need to learn about your disease, know what your options are, be your own advocate. No one else will do this for you.
The program is shorter tomorrow, but I just want to go home. Not sure if I'll stay for the last Roundtable session or not. Since my right arm is still a bit sore, even with the pain killers, I think I better skip trying to do some bouldering at Hangar 18. Maybe next time I'm in the area, and not so mentally overwhelmed.
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