Medical bills...bills..bills...

Finally, almost all of my medical bills from last year have been corrected. The big issue wasn't with any of my ThyCa related doctor visits, but more with all the PT visits I had. I had a total of 30 visits, 10 over the 20 allowable. Will be glad when all my PT invoices are adjusted for my health care provider.

Next week I see the eye specialist for my leaky left eye. Wonder what kind of surgery will be needed to fix it. My boss's husband had a procedure done last December for a similar issue. Either I get this fixed or buy stock in Kleenex.

And here comes some more cancer

Thankfully, not my own. Sadly, someone else in my family is joining the club. My mom's lung mass is still there. She awaits a PET scan to check for lymph node involvement and to confirm it has not spread outside the structure of the lung. My brother says that since surgery is an option, it is probably still in the early stages.

She seems to be taking it well, so far. She only told her prayer group, but has decided that she didn't want to tell anyone else outside of our immediate family about it until after she has the PET scan and sees her pulmonary doc again. I seem to be taking it pretty well so far, also. I almost broke down in the bathroom at CostCo, but then I thought to myself, "my mom isn't dead. she has lung cancer, but her doc seems pretty confident that it can be removed with surgery. sure it sucks that she has to have surgery. it sucks even more that she has cancer. but she isn't dead. she can still live a long life after this. i don't have a reason to cry." I'm here for my mom. To help her through this journey. To keep her in good spirits. To let her know it is Ok to cry whenever she wants to. She is going to make it through this.

Non-small cell lung cancer. This is the type of lung cancer that non-smokers get. Non-smoking Asian women have a higher incidence of getting this type of lung cancer because of their exposure to second hand smoke. Unfortunately, my grand-father was a smoker.

ThyCa group meeting - February 7, 2012

It has been several months since the last post I did on my local support group meetings. We have had a few speakers (endocrinologist, surgeon) already. This evening we had a pharmacology student speak to us about our meds. It was interesting and of course informative. We had a lot of questions, so his 20 minute presentation was stretched out to 90 mins!

When he was describing the mental effects of being hypothyroid, and he said "mental dullness", which was not on his slide/handout. I had to stop him to make sure I heard him correctly. Gave me a good chuckle because I had never heard of thyroid brain fog described this way. "Mental dullness". Nice.

One of his slides had a table with the different medications. "Liotrix", sold under the brand name 'Thyrolar' was listed by itself. I have never heard of either. Liotrix, he explained, is the synthetic form of desiccated thyroid, or 'Armour Thyroid', which is pretty much pig thyroid. Since it comes from an animal's thyroid, and has both T3 and T4 in it. Armour is marketed as 'natural' thyroid medication because it comes from a pig, not chemicals. For some, Armour works wonders. The controversy is in the fact that it is hard to regulate exactly how much of T3 v T4 is in each Armour pill. What I found interesting is that he said it actually does have chemicals in it, which is necessary to bind it together into a pill form. So it is 'natural' thyroid plus some chemicals to keep it stable. Got it. Anyway, Liotrix is a drug that has both T3 and T4 in it (1:4 ratio). It is not a very common drug prescribed because our bodies automatically convert T4 into T3. Most don't need the extra T3. Others, like myself, need additional T3 to clear up issues, like afternoon fatigue, or thyroid brain fog.

Among the food interactions to avoid right before or after taking our daily T4 dose, he listed 'cottonseed meal'. I asked what that was, and he didn't know. So I Googled it: animal feed. Doubt I will ever eat animal feed for breakfast, so I don't see this as a problem.

We have another speaker at our meeting next month - a radiologist who will go over the finer points of the radio-iodine ablation treatment. We are also hoping to get a pathologist. Mary, one of the other co-facilitators, has done a fantastic job coordinating all of the speakers for our meetings. Me on the other hand, nothing. It is getting to the point where I send out the meeting reminders the Friday before the meetings, so I feel like a bit of a slacker. I guess the most important thing is that we all show up for the meetings.

Thyroid cancer in the news - update on Argentine President

According to a Reuters.com article, the post-op pathology found that Argentine President, Cristina Fernandez, did not have thyroid cancer, at all. The article says this happens 2% of the time.

I don't know that I would want part of my body removed if it didn't need to be. I think if this happened to me, after my chances of cancer increased from 5% to 20-30% due to the presence of what looked like hurthle cells from my FNA, and knowing the history of cancer in my parent's lineage, I think I'd be upset that my left thyroid was removed for no reason at all. What is that saying, that hindsight is always 20-20? I'd have to agree with that since the cancer cells in my left lobe were different from the those in the right. If my left lobe came out clean, they would not have found the cancer in my right lobe until much later. What then? I might be in the "over age 45 group" and in stage 2, maybe also some lymph node invasion since one of the three foci was close to the margin. I think it would be far worse for me to have to deal with the real cancer scare five, even 10 years later. I am lucky all of it was caught early.

I wish the best for the Argentine President. She had a total thyroidectomy, so no worries about cancer showing up in the other lobe (if only half of her thyroid was taken out) years later, and she doesn't have to go through RAI. Not sure what the T4 protocol would be since she doesn't have cancer, but she will have to take it for the rest of her life. I hope her doctors follow up with annual testing (blood work, ultrasounds, etc.) just to make sure nothing ever shows up in her thyroid bed. Better to be on the over cautious side, regardless of her current non-cancer diagnosis.

How does my neck look? - 1/7/12

This is my inaugural post using the Blogger app on my phone. Here goes something (or nothing).....

Still getting used to writing "2012" or "/12" every time I have to write a date.

Last year at this time, I was so happy to be done with 2010, and rightly so since it was the year of my ThyCa diagnosis. The first year is definitely the hardest for anyone diagnosed with any kind of cancer. I feel very lucky that I found and joined the local ThyCa support group after my first surgery. Regardless of what is going on with my own ThyCa journey, I plan on staying active with this group because I am sure that many more will be following in my footsteps every year, and I want to be there for anyone of them that needs support.

This year, as with every year going forward, I pray for clear ultrasounds and that my meds and levels stay where they need to be. My Endo is fine with my levels. I don't think the changes I experienced (brain fog, needing afternoon naps, two periods in Nov, etc.) in Nov/Dec of last year are due to depression, at least I hope they are not. If it is, thank goodness there is a needle for it - I'll take an acupuncture needle over drugs and chemicals any day! Still think everything was and still is out of whack because my workout routine went down to pilates and a run once a week. I still have issues with my right arm, so I have not gone climbing since October; not supposed to run because I have OA in both knees. So it is not my cancer that is holding me back right now, it is my body.

So this year, in addition to taking all of my meds more consistently, I also need to take better care of myself. I need to eat better, sleep better, and strengthen all the weak areas of my body so I can return to climbing and running (easy there, not planning on running a marathon, just want to be able to run at a good pace for my knees!) quickly and easily. Like AnneMarie said, I need to come back stronger. Been thinking about getting a trainer for some time now, just have to find a good, affordable one. So, that is the plan, for now.

Anyway, how does my neck look?

How does my neck look? 1/1/12

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2012!

Hoping for another year of clear ultrasounds and TSH/FT4/Tg/TgAB levels where they need to be. And, also hoping that my blocked tear duct issue will be fixed this year.

Thyroid cancer in the news

I was reading on the internet this evening that President Cristina Fernandez, of Argentina, was recently diagnosed with Thyroid cancer and will undergo surgery next month. I also learned that the first drugs to treat Medullary thyroid cancer, two kinase inhibitors, have been approved. So amid all the people that are being diagnosed with thyroid cancer this year, medical break-throughs are still happening.

I still feel very lucky to have had a clean 1-yr WBS and undetectable stimulated Tg/TgAB. I still worry about it every time I miss my daily Levoxyl or afternoon T3 - How much am I exposing myself to elevated TSH? What if there are any cancer cells that are still roaming around in my blood stream that have had the opportunity to 'wake up' and grow every time I have missed one of my pills? I know, I need to stop worrying, and just make sure to take my pills on time.