A Final Post

I have been meaning to write a final post for many months now. I continue to learn and change my views as I do. If I could go back to the beginning of this journey, knowing what I know now, I would make completely different choices. But I guess that’s what learning is, and I wouldn’t even know what I know now if I hadn’t been made the choices I did.

Summer 2014

Where to start… About a year ago in June 2014, I finally began to realize that iodine was causing me more trouble than it was worth. After a year and a half of using iodine on and off, I decided to quit. In fact, I decided that all the supplements I had been taking were just another wild goose chase, and that I was going to stop spending time and money on them.

My health had been very good during the previous winter and spring. I think I may have gotten one small cold, but very few allergy symptoms. I also felt very good mentally and spiritually– like I was on track.

It was very shortly after this that I had an ultrasound in July which showed that the tumor had grown significantly. The tumor was shaped like an ellipsis. To give you an idea of its growth over time, when it was initially measured in May 2010, the ellipsoid volume was 62.3. It grew steadily until May of 2012 when it reached a peak volume of 144. Since then it decreased in volume to 104. And then the  July ultrasound showed that the volume was now 137.4, nearly as large as it ever was. The radiologist also said that there were “two small nodes seen lateral to the common carotid artery measuring about 5 mm.” The gist of it seemed to be that the cancer was spreading.

One ultrasound back in the Fall of 2010 had mentioned suspicious lymph nodes, but since then this had never happened.

I had had the same two ultrasound technicians since I started getting ultrasounds. This time I had a new woman, and during the scan she asked me why I didn’t just get my thyroid removed. I said that I didn’t want to take drugs for the rest of my life, among other things, and she said, “Just get half out! That’s what I did.” Then she proceeded to tell me about how she had thyroid symptoms in her 20s, had had half her thyroid removed, was completely fine afterwards and never had to take medication.

What impressed me about this was that removing half of her thyroid had gotten rid of her symptoms. I believe hers included extreme hot spells and weight gain. No one had ever told me that removing part of the thyroid would relieve any symptoms…

What symptoms?

When I initially discovered the lump in my neck back in 2010, I had just had horrible spring allergies. I was completely wiped out for weeks. This had never happened before. As I seemingly boosted my health with lots of alternative methods, my allergies had improved. They weren’t entirely gone, but they weren’t nearly as bad as that spring. But then other “symptoms” appeared. I would occasionally gain a pound or two out of the blue, and my periods were growing closer together. Now they averaged every 25 days. My sex drive had been low ever since having children years ago. I didn’t like these things, and I attributed them to my thyroid.

Now since then I have met many women in their mid-40s who experience weight gain and increased periods. I think it just often goes with the territory. But at the time I thought for the very first time that maybe surgery had something to offer.

When I got the results of the ultrasound I was so upset. Often in the past I had been very nervous to open up the test results, but this time I was very confident they would be good. So I was completely blown away. Here I was feeling so good physically, mentally and spiritually, and yet the test reflected the opposite.

What to do…

It seemed like a decision had to be made. I was vacillating between remembering all that I knew spiritually as the truth and falling into fear. I knew that my doctor would be calling as soon as she got the results to pitch more fear to me, tell me what she had said all along, that I was risking my life, that I was a mother, that surgery wasn’t a big deal. And in the meantime, I was getting all sorts of new sensations in the tumor. I often felt things in my tumor– sometimes itching which I always took to be healing, and sometimes little sharp shooting sensations. But now there was this greatly increased activity (which I am sure was all fear-caused) which seemed to back up the physical evidence.

What I decided upon was a kind of compromise: I wasn’t convinced that that the doctors were right, but I was getting tired of fighting this battle. The idea that I could get half of the thyroid removed, potentially get rid of a bunch of my symptoms, and put this whole ordeal behind me seemed like a solution.

Surgery

Somewhat fearfully I found a thyroid surgeon and made an appointment. I wondered if the surgeon would be opposed to getting only half removed. I don’t believe that is offered as a solution very often, at least in Boston. One thing an endocrinologist told me was that if you get the whole thyroid out, they are able to monitor what they believe are thyroid cancer markers in your blood. I forget exactly what, but they believe an increased level of a certain thyroid hormone indicates a likelihood of cancer since you should no longer be able to produce these.  If you only get half of the thyroid out, they can’t use that hormone as a marker.

I met initially with a physician’s assistant who explained the surgery to me. He recommended a full thyroidectomy, but when I said I only wanted to get half removed he didn’t put up a fight at all. The date of surgery was set for early September, and the surgeon ordered another ultrasound and a CAT scan. The ultrasound to check on the suspicious nodes. If they were indeed cancerous then the surgery would include removing them. The CAT scan so that he had a clear picture of where everything within the neck was located for doing the surgery.

This follow-up ultrasound showed that there were no suspicious lymph nodes so this wouldn’t be an issue. Actually, even before the follow-up ultrasound an endocrinologist who worked with the surgeon looked at my July ultrasound and thought that the lymph nodes were normal. This came as a bit of a relief, but I was still believing that the tumor had grown rapidly (and continued to grow rapidly?)

August went by and September came. The day before the surgery a friend of mine asked if I was excited about it. I was taken aback because I was so far from excited about it, and I remember thinking, “I should be excited about this.” But I wasn’t at all. I saw it as something to get through. And below that I felt like I had caved in to all the pressure. Still, I reminded myself, I was putting thyroid cancer behind me. I was putting an end to this.

On the morning of the surgery I arrived at the hospital in the morning. My surgery was scheduled for 1 pm, but there had been a complication with the patient before me so I had to wait an extra two hours for that to be resolved. They actually offered me the option of rescheduling, but it had been very tricky to find a window where I had two weeks to recover, so I said I would wait.

The surgery went smoothly. They said they had gotten all of the tumor, emphasizing how good it was that no cancer had spread beyond it.

After the surgery, regret

My recovery from the surgery was rough. I don’t think I had realized how traumatic it would be for my body. After all, for years everyone had been telling me to get it out like it was no big deal at all. I was sick from the anesthesia all evening. I left the hospital at 8 pm to go home, but I probably should have stayed overnight. I threw up right before getting into the car and then as soon as I got home.

I was completely wiped out the next day and stayed in bed most of the day. The following day I may have taken a walk. I felt very much like I had been invaded, violated. My throat had been sliced open, and there was a big bandage over it. I regretted the surgery almost as soon as it had happened.

On the second night following the surgery I was awake all night with the same kind of buzzing insomnia that the iodine supplements had given me. I thought, “This is outrageous! Here I have had the surgery, and I am having worse symptoms than I’ve had all summer!”

My regret was very intense that first weekend. Then I made a little bit of peace with it, and then it would return a week or two later. This happened all throughout the fall, really every time I didn’t feel well I would fall back into regret. And I didn’t feel well quite a bit that fall. I had a whole series of health problems. One week I had a terrible stomach bug and was throwing up like crazy (aside from the effects of the anesthesia, I hadn’t thrown up in years and years), I had many small colds, I was frequently exhausted, and finally my back went out.

Inaccurate Ultrasound

On a follow up visit to the surgeon I got the results of the surgery. It showed that the tumor was still papillary carcinoma (I have to say I had a strong hope that it would show up as benign). It also showed that the tumor measured 3.5 cm x 2.5 cm x 2. That gives it a volume of 73.3. This as opposed to the July ultrasound which said it measured 4.1 cm x 3.2 cm x 2.5 cm, a volume of 137. The July ultrasound was massively inaccurate!  The true size of the tumor showed that it had shrunk nearly down to its initial size in May 2010.

When I asked the surgeon about this, he said, “Oh, well the measurement after surgery is always more accurate.” Obviously.

I do have a theory about why the July ultrasound was inaccurate. The hospital where I got all of my ultrasounds had gotten a new piece of ultrasound equipment earlier that year. When I was going for my previous ultrasound in January the technician started to bring me to the room where the new equipment was and then said, you know what, let’s bring you to the older machine so that your reading will be consistent with your previous ones. I am guessing that my July ultrasound was done on the new machine.

Common Sense

All this said, if I had just used my common sense back when I got the unfavorable July ultrasound, I could have avoided a lot of suffering. As I said, at the time I was feeling really good, in a good state of mind. The appearance of the tumor itself on my neck did not appear any larger. Western medicine would tell you that their evidence and beliefs are the truth and that you need to listen to them or risk death. But in a rational world no one would suggest that you remove a major organ when you feel perfectly well.

Obviously regret isn’t good, but I actually think it’s one of the worst emotions because you feel so upset and you can do absolutely nothing about it. You can’t go back and undo a surgery. I imagine a lot of my health problems last fall were caused as much by my intense regret as they were from the surgery itself. Gradually the regret subsided. I would say that since January my health has been back to normal, that is, very good. I think I have fully recovered from the surgery, and now I really do feel like thyroid cancer is behind me.

I have a scar on my neck, but I don’t look at the mirror and think, “I might have cancer,” anymore. I go days without thinking about cancer. When back when I had a tumor, cancer was always lurking at least a little bit.

Things I have learned

I have learned a million things, but one big one is that you don’t need to do what the doctor tells you to. Of course this is obvious, but I don’t think most people question doctors’ orders at all. It’s so much the basis of the patient-doctor relationship that doctor’s tell you what you have to do without even beginning to ask for your agreement or input.

After the surgery I met with the surgeon again, and then also with an endocrinologist. The endocrinologist wanted to set up appointments I want to say every 6 months or so, for the foreseeable future. They wanted to monitor my blood and thyroid levels, check periodically for any further signs of cancer. One young doctor in training told me that there was a chance that the cancer would come back and that I would know it if I felt a marble like thing in my neck.

After all the reading I have done about health and the mind, that is the most ridiculous thing to say to someone. Seth, in many of the Seth books,  explains so clearly how crazy the idea of “preventative” medicine is. The doctors are looking for every signs of illness; they’re not trying to support health. Illness is assumed as the eventual position everyone will be in; health is never assumed as a natural state. So if I were to return to the endocrinologist every 6 months, the assumption would be an underlying fear-belief that the cancer might return.

It’s ironic because the doctors always pitched surgery as a way to put an end to cancer, but in fact, if I followed their advice, there would never be an end to cancer. Once you’ve had cancer, they assume you’re always at risk for a recurrence. Even if you haven’t had cancer, they are looking for it with regular colonoscopies and mammograms.

So I am all done with doctors for the time being. I don’t agree with so much that they do and assume. I am thoroughly convinced now that all health issues are caused by our thoughts and beliefs. If I get sick, I know that this is where I should be focusing, not on the symptoms, and certainly not on diseases.

If I could do it all again

This is kind of fanciful because of course this isn’t possible, and I wouldn’t be where I am without having gone through it. BUT if I could, I would have stopped visiting doctors right after my initial visit with medical intuitive who said she didn’t believe my tumor was cancer. I would have taken all those physical steps to improve my health: cleansing and making changes to my diet. I would focus on figuring out what caused me to develop the growth, and I would work on letting go whatever beliefs were blocking me, preventing my perfect health. Because perfect health is our natural state. If we can get our negative beliefs out of the way, perfect health is what remains.

I believe that going to the various doctors and getting regular ultrasounds basically functioned to remind me over and over that I was not perfectly healthy, that I had cancer and all the attendant fears. To heal, you need to believe in your health. You need to be convinced of it, and that is difficult when you visit a doctor regularly and are told that their tests are more knowledgeable than you are about your own body.

I realize this is a very radical step for most people, but like I said, if I could do it again, I would drop the doctors and rely on my own feelings and knowledge about my body.