Good Gollie Miss Hollie: Is the wait driving you crazy?

The much anticipated update. :)

Okay, I am gonna try to not talk in technical terms, because I realize that not everyone speaks doctor. Only the lucky few get that privileged (Dawn, Deb, Pam, etc..).

After 6 weeks off of my meds, we were allowing my tumor markers (blood counts) to rise, to make sure that there is still active cancer in my body. And as we knew already, there is. This year we tried a new form of iodine for my scan, since I am fully immune to the old form of iodine used. However, iodine is iodine, no matter how you spin in, and the scan showed nothing. Again, as we suspected. But the new scan (and I mean brand spanking new technology) was kinda cool. Plus, they let my mom sit in the scan room the entire time with me, which was super nice.

The doctors have been wonderful this year, truly a blessing. They do not have a defeatist attitude that doctors in the past have had when they no longer know how to treat me. They are willing to turn ever stone to find the cancer.

Now, my PET scans (a different, stronger scan) continuously show nodules in my lungs and medistinum (above lung, in chest). The question is, which nodules are the ones that are active cancer, and which are benign? Or are they all active? I will be having a PET scan now, to determine if the nodules have grown, this will be very accurate since we have many previous PET scans to prepare it to. I will have the date for that on Monday.

I also have to go see a surgeon on December 31st. Since the cancer is a very aggressive thyroid cancer, the endocrinologist is hoping that he can find it. Maybe some fresh eyes will give fresh perspective. I have had this problem before in Florida, when my endo could not find the cancer and quickly gave up. BUT, the radiologist INSISTED that it was there, and sure enough, fresh eyes found it.

This is a common problem in America with thyroid cancer patients who do not follow book standards. The doctors simply do not know what to do with them. Especially if radiation is not an option. Luckily, there are a handful of endos that have dedicated their lives to thyroid cancer alone...one of them is Dr. Ain who heads up a lot of the thyca.org events/conversations and whatnot. We are going to contact him, since I am a severe case, and possibly travel there...once I get all of my testing done here.

Ultimately it is in God's hands. If He wants us to see Dr. Ain in Kentucky, he will make that clear to us, or, he will open the eyes of the doctors here (as he has been doing) and we won't have to travel. Either way, I have to have faith now. And if you want to pray for me, please pray for patience and peace. As many of you know, the wait is the hardest.

I also wanted to share something with all of you. Often times people do not take thyroid cancer seriously, because almost all patients get it once and it never spreads past the thyroid and never comes back. But for the few of us that have aggressive thyroid cancer, we never really have good options, because there is no definitive answer on how to treat. But here is a link to show you what cancer.gov shows you about RECURRENT thyroid cancer. This is all doctor talk, but if you really wanna know, then it is a great source.

As far as school goes this semester, I am going to have to take am Incomplete in both courses, I still have way to many tests to finish out the semester. This upsets me more than anything, I really thought I could do both, but it turns out that I am not Superwoman. :-( All I want to do is graduate.

Okay, I guess that is enough for y'all to take in for one night. Have a nice weekend everyone.

SEVERELY SWOLLEN FACE, A LOVELY SIDE EFFECT. JEALOUS?