Lifelines: Big Deal

He looked at me incredulously. “What are you thinking? Your body just went through a major trauma! You had cancer and you lost your thyroid a major organ. You need to give yourself time to heal”

T hyroid cancer isn’t a big deal. Doctors will tell you that if a person had to choose a type of cancer thyroid cancer is the one to choose. As someone who works in the medical field I was well aware of this.

Thyroid disease runs in my family so it was no surprise when at age 26 a year after the birth of my second child I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I had been feeling completely exhausted and had to push myself to get through the day. I was placed on levothyroxine a synthetic thyroid hormone and within a few months I felt better.

About two years later I started feeling pain in my throat. I figured that it was either a thyroid issue or reflux and I asked a physician’s assistant in the office where I work what she thought. “Probably reflux ” she said. She gave me medication for reflux but the pain continued to get worse. My whole neck began to ache and I had trouble swallowing. I consulted with a doctor who said it was probably an inflammation of the thyroid that would take a few weeks to go away but would heal on its own.

One day a couple of weeks before Pesach I was rubbing my throat because of the pain and I felt a lump. At this point my doctor sent me for an ultrasound.