Mains Memories: Perspective Part II

Words cannot do justice in describing the flux of emotions you feel run through you as you doctor looks you in the eyes and tells you to brace for cancer.

I think my reaction was like most…you immediately spring into the “woe is me,” and “why me?” frame of mind, immediately call your husband and parents while crying uncontrollably, obsessing about the worst-case-scenario as if it were 100% reality.

That lasted for just a short time.

A lot of prayers to God and encouragement from my amazing husband and family has put everything into crisp focus. What is it I’m focused on now? Simply the fact that I have absolutely no control over my health. You can be extremely healthy, skinny, fit, and maintain an inherited set of perfect genetics, and it can make absolutely no difference. You can be 25 like me, you can be 80, you can 40-something with little kids, you can be just a kid yourself at 5 years old and be told you have cancer. It doesn’t discriminate.

My brothers have teased me for being a health freak for quite some time…years. And in the last year and half I’ve taken it up a couple of notches even – developing a true passion for nutrition and healthy eating, and physical fitness. Doing so I’ve dropped over 40 pounds and Dee has dropped over 60 pounds in the last year and half. We both no longer even fit remotely close into our few pieces of “skinny clothes” we held onto from our super skinny days of years prior. Eating organic, non-processed, only healthy foods 99% of the time and working out like a fiend will not protect you 100%...I absolutely believe it will help and heal you, but it will not protect you. That was a big misconception I had. After all, I can control everything, right? J

Everyone will at some point in their life be diagnosed with some sort of a health complication. Maybe it’s cancer, maybe it’s MRSA, maybe it’s MS. For me it’s at 25 with two diagnoses: hyperparathyroidism due to a benign tumor on a parathyroid gland, and a thyroid auto-immune disease (Hashimoto’s) that has caused multiple nodules to grow on my thyroid, 5 of which are highly indicative of cancer my doctor double confirmed for me today.

If anyone is every struggling with putting their particular life problem into perspective, I’d encourage you to visit a local children’s hospital’s cancer ward, or even look at their websites online (St Jude’s for example). Bam. Perspective. I cannot imagine spending my precious, innocent childhood years in a cancer hospital. I cannot imagine being a parent and watching my child go through that. This is easy, what I have. Sure this sucks, but it is absolutely nothing compared to that.

So, today I am worried, but I’m not sad. I’m stressed and anxious, but I have faith that everything will be perfectly fine in a matter of months. Mostly, I am GRATEFUL. I’m grateful for the amazing woman I work with that referred me to this incredible endocrinologist who found all this EARLY. I’m grateful to my husband who provides me with unwavering support every time I get worked up with anxiety. I’m grateful to the best parents in the entire world that continue to repeat the words to me ‘we’ll get through this.’ And I am so very grateful to the Lord for bringing me to this, and bringing me through it. I’m so incredibly thankful that of all the cancers to have, I likely have one of the slowest growing and highly curable forms. Side note – I also have a sexist cancer that attacks women only 90% of the time…bastard.

I can hypothesize all day about what His plans are. I think he is trying to teach me patience, which I’ve always lacked and frankly cite as a contributor to all my successes, but I’m realizing every day you must walk by faith through something like this, and not by sight. You must have patience and trust in His plans. You’ll never make it through otherwise. I think he’s also trying to show me that I cannot control everything. As Dee always teases me ‘If you’re not captain of the ship, it sinks, doesn’t it?!” So true, but this I have no control over.

I have no control over the results of the biopsies. I have no control over whether or not cancer will begin to grow eventually. All I can look at are the statistics for each, and they’re scary enough to make me race to the operating table to get it out ASAP.

But I am so very grateful. I have an appreciation for my health that I never could have possibly had before. I have an appreciation for how fragile life is. I’m learning not to sweat the small stuff (it’s going to take me time!). I’m treasuring every moment.

I’m in the process of transferring to a new endocrinologist as my incredible one just retired today, and then getting a fine needle aspiration biopsy of the likely cancerous nodules, and meeting with surgeons to discuss the surgeries. I am most likely going with an astounding surgeon I found at UC San Francisco.

We really appreciate everyone’s thoughts and prayers during this, let’s call it ‘interesting,’ time. I won’t say hard, as it truly could be SO very much worse. SO MUCH WORSE. Perspective. Praise God that I can still go about my daily routine, and have an incredibly positive outlook for recovery! Other than having to sleep 12 hours a night due to the extreme fatigue, I am as healthy and good as can be considering these bastards won’t stop attacking my thyroid J

…you’ve got to throw a little bit of humor into life.

Having the cutest kitty in the world helps too...