I saw my young Robins today, the ones who fledged last week. They spent the week deep in the bushes about my lawn, in the thick branches of the lilac probably behind some floribunda thorns.
Today they made their first foray out onto the lawn. Still well close to the edge of my property where the safety of a low branch offers some sanctuary. When the birds fledged, there was clearly one bird who was ready before the rest, and one that was decidedly behind who only raised a beak to be fed but otherwise rested. The more mature bird was half-hanging out of the nest and these Robins had built on a ledge in a place that kept the birds rather close to the ground but bone-dry in the worst of weather. The choice must have favored them because they all fledged, the weakest staying an extra day or more. Today I looked out onto the lawn and all four were there, as mom and dad tut-tutted them and tried to call them in closer to the wooded edge. The largest baby was near the smallest and was already feeding itself on some lawn slugs. The youngest looked smaller with a stubby tail and many spots on the breast. The strongest was calling to the weakest imploring it to get out of the middle of the lawn and into safer territory. Finally the little bird, cheeping madly,
making every mistake a young bird makes, finally hopped a few steps in the right direction.
Then stopping to rest, the older but still just-fledged Robin began it's insistent lecture again, and again the youngest bird took a few more hops into safer territory. This went on for awhile until the baby was safe at the edge of the woods with the parent bird just arrived nearby, tut-tutting from time to time. I noticed the dapper visage and vigor of the strongest baby bird, already feeding itself and looking out for its youngest sibling in a very parental way. The family group is already moving along, the young learning to find their own food... and the youngest found itself on the lawn with the others, but really needing another day to flutter in the bushes and gain some strength. Mom and Dad are ever solicitous of their young charges, carefully guiding them through their short formative period and onward to adulthood. Their handsome spotted breasts serve them well now, in the patchy sunlight of my yard, their pale backs and camouflage chests making them very hard to spot indeed. The Robins, but also other thrushes, including the Bluebird, are known for their strong parental instincts and careful sheparding of their young.
A Bluebird offspring from early in the year will even help feed the young of a later brood.
In this way, a bird so troubled by competition for nest sites continues nesting into August when the wren and house sparrow have finally closed up their nurseries. In the great pantheon of bird families, the thrushes occupy a unique niche. Their melodic evening songs, low-to-the-ground lifestyle and usually brown plumage make them the cheerful everyman of the bird world, shy and quiet in the heat of day, jovial and carefree as the sun makes its descent. When I see a Robin, if I think about it a bit, it's a really extraordinary thing.... this mini-dinosaur ripping worms from the lawn and carefully, concernedly raising and feeding it's young. Or maybe it's the big moist eyes and industrious manner that make me take a second look. Common, yes, but still capable of arousing wonder. Perhaps in old age I'll fall in love with the sparrow. That may take a bit longer though.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Radioactive but doing well
Well I'm radioactive and must carry a card now for 1 month. I will set off detectors employed by homeland security in toll booths and the like. I could be pulled over by a black car... and
they might say: "Paper's please!".
It's quite possibly the end of the cancer and I'll just need non-invasive tests and scans
every 3 months, then 6 months, then yearly. What an experience this has been!
Starting at the end of February driving through an 8 inch snowstorm to get a biopsy.
And then flying off to Orlando knowing I might get bad news. Then getting the bad news on
a payphone with Disney music playing. The shock of a big ugly tumor - you look in the mirror
and you see death just growing out of your neck. Ring around the rosy indeed.
That song came from the Black Plague. Radiologist chatted for 15 minutes with me...
cute asian man. About 35. He said my post-surgery scan showed I'd gone to world-class
surgeon. Phew!
I'm in isolation for 7 days but can go out to the store... just not stand next to anyone because
I might damage their thyroid gland. I'm not afraid of feeling a little sick. I've been through a lot
and I want to say, more needle sticks in my arm in 3 months than seems just ... I could never be a junkie! Today is a lazy day and the skies are bright blue. Yesterday big thunderstorms ended our heat spell. 90, 94, 97, and yesterday was 96 in New Paltz. We'll be back up to the 90s soon.
You know, I really discovered myself a bit more with this illness. It's a transformative event.
I can see the negative self-talk because with an illness that happens a lot....
So you get to observe yourself a lot more - as I got closer and closer to panic, I got a chance to
practice over and over the kind of self-management I needed to get by. Death Panic gets only so bad, and then it crashes. The next time it came, I saw the death panic ramping up and I caught it sooner. Fear is exhausting.
It's like, the panic isn't me. It's a habit. When I was young I couldn't see the difference between myself and my thoughts at all. These late life epiphanies....
And death panic underlies so many of our other fears. To actually get to deal with death fright
and live a few more years or more... that's a great gift. Not that you still don't lose your cool and
want to give someone the finger who cuts you off in traffic. But the temper just runs out of
power so quickly now... 2 seconds later you're chuckling to yourself. But this tumor was really
of epic proportions... almost like it came down from on high. I flatter myself, perhaps...
but this was a big-honkin' cancer, huge with 2 different forms of Thyroid Cancer inside it.
The other side of the thyroid? Clear, clean, not even a benign growth. "unremarkable"
said the Pathology report. I'm gonna have lunch and go for a radioactive walk.
they might say: "Paper's please!".
It's quite possibly the end of the cancer and I'll just need non-invasive tests and scans
every 3 months, then 6 months, then yearly. What an experience this has been!
Starting at the end of February driving through an 8 inch snowstorm to get a biopsy.
And then flying off to Orlando knowing I might get bad news. Then getting the bad news on
a payphone with Disney music playing. The shock of a big ugly tumor - you look in the mirror
and you see death just growing out of your neck. Ring around the rosy indeed.
That song came from the Black Plague. Radiologist chatted for 15 minutes with me...
cute asian man. About 35. He said my post-surgery scan showed I'd gone to world-class
surgeon. Phew!
I'm in isolation for 7 days but can go out to the store... just not stand next to anyone because
I might damage their thyroid gland. I'm not afraid of feeling a little sick. I've been through a lot
and I want to say, more needle sticks in my arm in 3 months than seems just ... I could never be a junkie! Today is a lazy day and the skies are bright blue. Yesterday big thunderstorms ended our heat spell. 90, 94, 97, and yesterday was 96 in New Paltz. We'll be back up to the 90s soon.
You know, I really discovered myself a bit more with this illness. It's a transformative event.
I can see the negative self-talk because with an illness that happens a lot....
So you get to observe yourself a lot more - as I got closer and closer to panic, I got a chance to
practice over and over the kind of self-management I needed to get by. Death Panic gets only so bad, and then it crashes. The next time it came, I saw the death panic ramping up and I caught it sooner. Fear is exhausting.
It's like, the panic isn't me. It's a habit. When I was young I couldn't see the difference between myself and my thoughts at all. These late life epiphanies....
And death panic underlies so many of our other fears. To actually get to deal with death fright
and live a few more years or more... that's a great gift. Not that you still don't lose your cool and
want to give someone the finger who cuts you off in traffic. But the temper just runs out of
power so quickly now... 2 seconds later you're chuckling to yourself. But this tumor was really
of epic proportions... almost like it came down from on high. I flatter myself, perhaps...
but this was a big-honkin' cancer, huge with 2 different forms of Thyroid Cancer inside it.
The other side of the thyroid? Clear, clean, not even a benign growth. "unremarkable"
said the Pathology report. I'm gonna have lunch and go for a radioactive walk.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Spring evening runs
It's late in the day for me... I thought maybe you were out today. I'm doing some sql programming right now... and I'm hungry despite the larger than usual meal I had for lunch.
I'll go home at 5:30pm and change into shorts.. then I'm thinking...what next, where next?
Up to the mountains but I need a new running course. I know them all... perhaps I'll do the
rough and tumble run, I affectionately name the coyote ridge special.... will they see me now, a bit grey and slower of step? Perhaps a tasty meal for the young pups? I spot them only with their whitish poops, the hairs of various voles carpeting their dried dung. No I don't see them or rather, I see movement and I know it's them but unlike the fox, I don't know their smell, or it can't be perceived at such distance. A turn of foot and I might be limping, confused as night falls. Cold air might seal my fate, if not the teeth of the alpha bitch nipping sharply at my wounded heel. No, I'll stay on the garden path, with the mountain bikers, along the old stone walls. Cellphone would be of no use in these hills .... one turns a corner and the rocks block all but perhaps the old AM radio waves. Broad circles and no more than 2+ miles from my parked car. It's nice to feel the rarity of my aged body, cavorting in such a manner,
though the ridge run excites me most, death is not so distant, the practice steels my soul.
I'll go home at 5:30pm and change into shorts.. then I'm thinking...what next, where next?
Up to the mountains but I need a new running course. I know them all... perhaps I'll do the
rough and tumble run, I affectionately name the coyote ridge special.... will they see me now, a bit grey and slower of step? Perhaps a tasty meal for the young pups? I spot them only with their whitish poops, the hairs of various voles carpeting their dried dung. No I don't see them or rather, I see movement and I know it's them but unlike the fox, I don't know their smell, or it can't be perceived at such distance. A turn of foot and I might be limping, confused as night falls. Cold air might seal my fate, if not the teeth of the alpha bitch nipping sharply at my wounded heel. No, I'll stay on the garden path, with the mountain bikers, along the old stone walls. Cellphone would be of no use in these hills .... one turns a corner and the rocks block all but perhaps the old AM radio waves. Broad circles and no more than 2+ miles from my parked car. It's nice to feel the rarity of my aged body, cavorting in such a manner,
though the ridge run excites me most, death is not so distant, the practice steels my soul.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
A visit to Edgewater Farm
The ghost of Don Cote ... and my own ghosts too... came out amidst the old barn smells of varnish and wood, and the sawdust well-settled from years of sculpting.
An old saddle still perches where Don and I looked it over and decided it was a child's saddle.
It hasn't moved and I didn't touch it. I saw a horse sculpture, not too bad, though most of the rest was little experimental pieces, or things Don started but never finished, sketches done in wood to prepare him for his greater works. I wanted to have the running horse, which is copied from the windvanes that came from a particular 19th Century Morgan Horse. But I thought even to move the dust would be a crime. It looks like Don's old building south of his own may fall into the river this year, but the house he labored on with his team of workers is still there, still perching strongly. Some of the deck may no longer be safe, but we don't want to go there do we? All of us at one time, listening to the creek, and enjoying Don's company and today seems as near to me as that .... I could relive those days on the sun-drenched deck, but I'll
leave some memories undisturbed. I don't want a new experience to overlay the old one. I'm on tiptoe here, sorting through sweet days past. The new owners have used the barn for their own collectibles and the barn has a new coat of paint. The little building on the hill near the entrance has been rebuilt as a kind of showpiece. Dexter's pasture still remains and the grass grows taller there yet, from years of manure and hayseed. This rather surprised me, that manure could still improve the grass 7 years on. Here and there dotting the property, Don's little greek columns and shrines, mysterious rock piles, and an old fence with a rusty lock, guarding what what was once his cash crop. Fenceposts standing in mute testimony.... a bare patch in the driveway and an oil stain where the blue truck has only recently been removed ... removed from the exact spot where Don last drove it. With Don dying so suddenly in 2001, and the property only sparingly used, there is a perfect time-capsule to open and muse on, to feel timeless penumbras flitting elegantly through the early mist, while the ancient river turns its glacial tills and slowly polishes another rock.
pvs
An old saddle still perches where Don and I looked it over and decided it was a child's saddle.
It hasn't moved and I didn't touch it. I saw a horse sculpture, not too bad, though most of the rest was little experimental pieces, or things Don started but never finished, sketches done in wood to prepare him for his greater works. I wanted to have the running horse, which is copied from the windvanes that came from a particular 19th Century Morgan Horse. But I thought even to move the dust would be a crime. It looks like Don's old building south of his own may fall into the river this year, but the house he labored on with his team of workers is still there, still perching strongly. Some of the deck may no longer be safe, but we don't want to go there do we? All of us at one time, listening to the creek, and enjoying Don's company and today seems as near to me as that .... I could relive those days on the sun-drenched deck, but I'll
leave some memories undisturbed. I don't want a new experience to overlay the old one. I'm on tiptoe here, sorting through sweet days past. The new owners have used the barn for their own collectibles and the barn has a new coat of paint. The little building on the hill near the entrance has been rebuilt as a kind of showpiece. Dexter's pasture still remains and the grass grows taller there yet, from years of manure and hayseed. This rather surprised me, that manure could still improve the grass 7 years on. Here and there dotting the property, Don's little greek columns and shrines, mysterious rock piles, and an old fence with a rusty lock, guarding what what was once his cash crop. Fenceposts standing in mute testimony.... a bare patch in the driveway and an oil stain where the blue truck has only recently been removed ... removed from the exact spot where Don last drove it. With Don dying so suddenly in 2001, and the property only sparingly used, there is a perfect time-capsule to open and muse on, to feel timeless penumbras flitting elegantly through the early mist, while the ancient river turns its glacial tills and slowly polishes another rock.
pvs
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Came through just fine
I survived my surgery, first 2 days had a slight fever but it wasn't awful. Some neck pain, some changes of sleeping position. I moved too much in the operating room so they had to put me out.... which means I had a trachea tube and my trachea has been mildly sore, weird when I burp. I can't say this is a horrible operation. I started on .125 mcg synthroid already.
I'm feeling pretty much ok, a little tired at times, a little winded going up hill. I thought I should just update my blog for those who are following the thyroid cancer thread and need hope, help, guidance, whatever. I did have to wait 9 hours before they took me into the operating room.
You actually walk into the operating room and hop on the table... that's a novelty. Minimally invasive seemed to be the way to go here... 2" scar or 5" scar... hmmmm. not too hard.
Think they got all the cancer but pathology will reveal whether there is anything microscopic.
Took one parathyroid and several nearby lymph nodes to play it safe. /Paul
I'm feeling pretty much ok, a little tired at times, a little winded going up hill. I thought I should just update my blog for those who are following the thyroid cancer thread and need hope, help, guidance, whatever. I did have to wait 9 hours before they took me into the operating room.
You actually walk into the operating room and hop on the table... that's a novelty. Minimally invasive seemed to be the way to go here... 2" scar or 5" scar... hmmmm. not too hard.
Think they got all the cancer but pathology will reveal whether there is anything microscopic.
Took one parathyroid and several nearby lymph nodes to play it safe. /Paul
Monday, April 14, 2008
Thyroid-3 days and counting
My dream last night was about a large bee shaped likea dragonfly that bites and if it bites, eventually itbecomes an alligator and takes over the body. Onelanded on my mother's back and I swatted it off...then I turned and told her to look too... There was apale white snake with cold eyes but inside the snakewas an alligator walking within the snake's body.I saw the legs and the head sticking out the front ofthe snake. I turned with a stick to fight thealligator and I saw him through a slit in the side ofthe snake, a giant writhing beast. I took the stickand went to stab the gator... then I woke up.Well we all know what the slit is, and only throughthe slit in the side of my body, can they attack thebeast. I've read online where people can have thiscancer for decades and live a normal life. Well you are in rare form. I feel like I'm in the Garden of Gethsemane. The agony in the garden.Oh well, I'm in the last 1/3 part of my life.I remember 30 years ago so well. Images flashingbefore me, sacred images... I just had a flashback to my first day at college... the nervousness and fear.The years roll away and it's a warm day in late Augustin 1976. The dorm was depressing. By nightfall Ihad attended my first party and the first few dayswere no classes and generally fun. But part of mejust wanted to go on with my previous life.It's weird to think that between that day and now, that's the lion's share of my life! Another 30 is notimpossible but I'm feeling very 2/3rd today.I feel like my individual soul will die when I die andit merges with a group soul that keeps spinning outnew lifetimes. Nothing is totally lost, thoughindividual artifacts of personhood that are merequirks of the temporal become subsumed into the one, but forever accessible. Whatever I lose in 3 days, I lose, but it won't stop me from walking this earth and enjoying this Spring. I've been helped along with little dreams the wholeway, 3 so-far. At every major stressor point, a dream comes out to show the way.
pvs
pvs
Thursday, March 27, 2008
1 month after diagnosis of Thyroid Cancer
I'm one month since my diagnosis, I still haven't had surgery, that's April 17th. Nobody told me to do it but I contacted an endocrinologist and got a bunch of blood tests. I thought it would be wise to get a baseline pre-operative. If you aren't suffering from Thyroid Cancer, this could get to be pretty boring. But I'm guessing there are multiple people out there who are just diagnosed or will be diagnosed later this year, so I'm hoping this will benefit them... One guy started a blog and made an entry 4 days after surgery...then didn't hear from him for a year. Thanks for the extra effort, man. Next up is the follow-up with the endocrine doctor and of course the pre-surgical testing... You don't want to do that too far away from the surgery because, if the doctor gets sick or you get sick, and the operation gets postponed... they like to have data that's a month old or less, preferably less. And of course the clearance from your GP that you are fit to be sliced. But now I'm just taking my reservatrol (careful, it thins the blood!)
because some study said that it worked to kill Thyroid cancer cells in a test tube. If you google and try to find other OTC medicines/substances that work against Thyroid Cancer - good luck,
you won't find very much out there at all! I fear for my singing voice, I fear if an endocrinologist decides that 88% of normal is the safe bet for me... because I'm a middle-aged
(ok 49) year old man. But now I'm in no-man's land. Few tests until next week, no doctor's appointments, just hang in there and think good thoughts that will keep these dumb cells from
invading the lymph glands. BTW I'm consider Stage 2 because of the large size of my lump.
4 Centimeters. Remember folks not to take any substances 7 days before the surgery that might thin the blood.... watch out for MSM, for garlic in large doses, aspirin, etc.
I saw my first Golden-Crowned Kinglet today... and heard my first Eastern Phoebe.
Yayy for Spring! /pvs
because some study said that it worked to kill Thyroid cancer cells in a test tube. If you google and try to find other OTC medicines/substances that work against Thyroid Cancer - good luck,
you won't find very much out there at all! I fear for my singing voice, I fear if an endocrinologist decides that 88% of normal is the safe bet for me... because I'm a middle-aged
(ok 49) year old man. But now I'm in no-man's land. Few tests until next week, no doctor's appointments, just hang in there and think good thoughts that will keep these dumb cells from
invading the lymph glands. BTW I'm consider Stage 2 because of the large size of my lump.
4 Centimeters. Remember folks not to take any substances 7 days before the surgery that might thin the blood.... watch out for MSM, for garlic in large doses, aspirin, etc.
I saw my first Golden-Crowned Kinglet today... and heard my first Eastern Phoebe.
Yayy for Spring! /pvs
Monday, March 10, 2008
All feels right
All feels right today, I've been confirmed as having papillomal Thyroid Cancer and no spread to
the lymph system in the neck. Papilloma doesn't spread as readily and they can still zap it
if it does spread to the lymphatic system. Surgery isn't until April 17th because I elected to
go to NYC for laproscopic surgery.
This morning at 7am I also witnessed the birth of a horse, with my partner Mark pulling it out
by the legs. Birth is a beautiful thing... to see something an hour old, running around on wobbly
legs... Everything is pointing towards the sacredness of life. Can we ever put fear aside and just marvel at life? I hope this cancer does it... though I've been told that those who go through easy cures sometimes forget the life-lessons of cancer. I guess I better work this one!
the lymph system in the neck. Papilloma doesn't spread as readily and they can still zap it
if it does spread to the lymphatic system. Surgery isn't until April 17th because I elected to
go to NYC for laproscopic surgery.
This morning at 7am I also witnessed the birth of a horse, with my partner Mark pulling it out
by the legs. Birth is a beautiful thing... to see something an hour old, running around on wobbly
legs... Everything is pointing towards the sacredness of life. Can we ever put fear aside and just marvel at life? I hope this cancer does it... though I've been told that those who go through easy cures sometimes forget the life-lessons of cancer. I guess I better work this one!
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Thryoid cancer - did I just wake up finally?
God why would anyone read this... are we all so enraptured with our own existence, do we really think anyone will enjoy the neurotic ruminations of one of the most spoiled people on earth. It's hard to feel relevant but I guess our extreme wealth in this country does not invalidate our existence totally.
Sometimes I give small amounts to charity just to force myself to briefly recognize the world's suffering before I go on obsessing about my own life. All we seem to want is to feel safe but truly, can you really feel safe from death? I tire of my own security seeking at times....
The old, I'll work till I'm 55 and retire, then my life begins... and here I have cancer to undermine the perfect alibi to a life well-lived. Well I guess my life has been a series of great weekends and vacations and holidays. And I might add, some splendid evenings especially in the summer. Tomorrow I find out if the cancer has spread. MRI tells you that for people who
are following this for a Thyroid Cancer thread.
Sometimes I give small amounts to charity just to force myself to briefly recognize the world's suffering before I go on obsessing about my own life. All we seem to want is to feel safe but truly, can you really feel safe from death? I tire of my own security seeking at times....
The old, I'll work till I'm 55 and retire, then my life begins... and here I have cancer to undermine the perfect alibi to a life well-lived. Well I guess my life has been a series of great weekends and vacations and holidays. And I might add, some splendid evenings especially in the summer. Tomorrow I find out if the cancer has spread. MRI tells you that for people who
are following this for a Thyroid Cancer thread.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Angst, antipathy and thyroid cancer
Well what a great reason to start a blog... Thyroid Cancer. It started innocently enough with a visit to my primary care physician. It's morphed into a primary focus of my life, in a very short amount of time. End of January I was told to start looking for a new job inside the company, or possibly lose my current job. Great... 24 years with a large corporation means nothing as corporations are not human beings. Now if I had a maid and had scads of money, and that maid worked 24 years with me, would I tell her.. sorry, you have until March to find a job?
No that would be unbelievably cruel and unethical but when a corporation does it, we shake our
heads and vote-in our mainstream corporate candidates. And it's because the bible belt only has 2 standards of morality they're interested in: Protecting fetuses and stopping homosexuals.
If a billionaire corporation fires a highly rated employee... well that's not important. It flies below their brain's radar.... ok I'm giving them too much credit...
After chasing leads for a month, I got a job but that's getting ahead of the story.
At the same time (mid-Feb) I got my semi-yearly blood work and trotted off to my doctor for what I thought would be a quick and quiet visit. All went well but this doctor likes to feel for lumps and bumps and swollen glands. This time he found one right where my Thyroid lives.
A good doctor that he is, he told me, this is new, it was not here 6 months ago or I would have found it. Let's get you an ultrasound... it's probably a cyst. The woman doing the ultrasound
said... it looks like thyroid nodules, they're fairly common. Oh good, I thought.... and enjoyed
my weekend after googling nodules and finding out 95% of them are benign.... well that depends
but it's basically true. Monday the results are in, it's a nodule and doc orders a precautionary
biopsy. I should have gotten a biopsy from the same hospital where the thyroid doctor actually lives but with a 95% benign number, it didn't even cross my mind.
Friday, 5 days later, in the teeth of a snowstorm, I drive to the hospital and soon they're injecting lidocaine into my nodule (doesn't hurt more than a shot, honest) and then taking a biopsy. Had I known that the lidocaine might not be fully circulated in the nodule, I would have
move the stuff around while they had their backs turned... but anyway, the first biopsy hurt
though it's not supposed to hurt hardly at all... not excruciating, I just groaned...which you
shouldn't do because that moves the thyroid.... the second biopsy didn't hurt at all.
Then a bit shaken, I walked back to my car and drove home in the snow more or less on
autopilot. Now given the size of my growth, fairly large, I, in retrospect, should have realized
that only 2 biopsies is a bit low... and that they must have found something the second time.
3-4 is more normal, for prostates and stuff it could be 6-12, for example. If you are in there
already and have a captive biopsee, why not take some more tissue....well the answer may
be that they saw what they saw on #2 and didn't need to go further. Or that the lump
was mostly fluid so they needed fewer samples... the first answer!
I had a nice weekend, still consoling myself about the 95% number. My sister told me
she knew a guy, a former IBMer and runner who had thyroid cancer at 50 and had his taken
out.... and is on synthroid and fine today.
Meanwhile it's off to a conference in Orlando where I am giving a pitch on Day 4 of 5.
And hoping to attend classes. Sunday is fine and there's no news, of course. Monday the results must have come in because there was the doctor's call to my home phone but I got the message at 4:45pm. No diagnosis... but suddenly I was worried again. Ok so I'll call the
doctor's office first thing in the morning. And the doctor is very practiced at not tipping his
hand... so Monday night, I slept soundly and Tuesday morning I decided, I'd better lift weights because I sure wouldn't want to exercise later if I got bad news at 9am.
Off to the conference at 8:15am and eat a quick breakfast but decide against coffee.... That was
a good idea I think! I don't trust the sound quality on my cellphone outdoors where it's going to be pushing 80 degrees, so I go inside and use a payphone and a calling card number.
Over and over I call, and finally the secretary puts me through to the doctor. And my life
changed when I heard these words: "Uhmmm geez, you're out of town this week, when do you get back?" I tried not to freak out, standing there with Disney music playing softly in the background. I said: "Doctor it sounds like you have bad news for me".
He said back: "I'm sorry it is bad news, you have Thyroid Cancer but it's the best kind you can get." Well I lost it but didn't cry, more like I hyperventilated. Then we talked turkey and
he recommended a thyroid surgeon. Wow, from ultrasound to surgery... in 2 weeks.
Look, I know what my fate would be in the 3rd world, or even the second world.... these are
slow growing cancers but they can eventually spread, so in a decade or less, if I grew up
in Pakistan or Jamaica, or Niger, I would be prepared for disease and death even though
papillomal Thyroid cancer is 99%+ curable, especially if the lump is investigated fairly soon.
But I'm spoiled here in the first world, I'm 49.9 years old. With surgery I won't necessarily have to die by 55 or sooner.
Now yesterday I visited the surgeon and I needed a thyroid function test (just to make sure my thyroid isn't hyperthyroid because that's a surgery risk, even if you are getting rid of the thyroid).
Usually cancer is present with no change in overall thyroid function. But sometimes by pure
accident really, both diseases can be present. And the doc will probably look down your
throat to see if your vocal cords are involved - he goes through the nose to do this but as squeamish and bigbaby as I can be about some procedures, this was fine... except the decongestant caused an anaphalactic reaction and I sweated profusely and nearly fainted.
Then he ordered an MRI to check if my lymph nodes were involved yet. Even if this is the case, they can dissect the nodes and remove cancer during the thyroidectomy, but the like to know ahead of time... also it can show the presence of cancer since a biopsy can be misread by
a pathologist and you can always get your slides fedEx'd to another pathologist... one the surgeon likes to work with. Sometimes they see weird cells but never know what you've got.
Anyway, I'm awaiting these last results, I'm scared as hell of losing my singing voice during the
operation, which can happen but I also know that life is good in other ways and I can give up singing to be alive.
Oh and a funny thing happened after I got the bad news about Cancer... I found a job to take the place of my current job that is ending. This happened 2 hours later...
All in all it was a Black February and one crisis just segued into the next, seamlessly.
/Paul
No that would be unbelievably cruel and unethical but when a corporation does it, we shake our
heads and vote-in our mainstream corporate candidates. And it's because the bible belt only has 2 standards of morality they're interested in: Protecting fetuses and stopping homosexuals.
If a billionaire corporation fires a highly rated employee... well that's not important. It flies below their brain's radar.... ok I'm giving them too much credit...
After chasing leads for a month, I got a job but that's getting ahead of the story.
At the same time (mid-Feb) I got my semi-yearly blood work and trotted off to my doctor for what I thought would be a quick and quiet visit. All went well but this doctor likes to feel for lumps and bumps and swollen glands. This time he found one right where my Thyroid lives.
A good doctor that he is, he told me, this is new, it was not here 6 months ago or I would have found it. Let's get you an ultrasound... it's probably a cyst. The woman doing the ultrasound
said... it looks like thyroid nodules, they're fairly common. Oh good, I thought.... and enjoyed
my weekend after googling nodules and finding out 95% of them are benign.... well that depends
but it's basically true. Monday the results are in, it's a nodule and doc orders a precautionary
biopsy. I should have gotten a biopsy from the same hospital where the thyroid doctor actually lives but with a 95% benign number, it didn't even cross my mind.
Friday, 5 days later, in the teeth of a snowstorm, I drive to the hospital and soon they're injecting lidocaine into my nodule (doesn't hurt more than a shot, honest) and then taking a biopsy. Had I known that the lidocaine might not be fully circulated in the nodule, I would have
move the stuff around while they had their backs turned... but anyway, the first biopsy hurt
though it's not supposed to hurt hardly at all... not excruciating, I just groaned...which you
shouldn't do because that moves the thyroid.... the second biopsy didn't hurt at all.
Then a bit shaken, I walked back to my car and drove home in the snow more or less on
autopilot. Now given the size of my growth, fairly large, I, in retrospect, should have realized
that only 2 biopsies is a bit low... and that they must have found something the second time.
3-4 is more normal, for prostates and stuff it could be 6-12, for example. If you are in there
already and have a captive biopsee, why not take some more tissue....well the answer may
be that they saw what they saw on #2 and didn't need to go further. Or that the lump
was mostly fluid so they needed fewer samples... the first answer!
I had a nice weekend, still consoling myself about the 95% number. My sister told me
she knew a guy, a former IBMer and runner who had thyroid cancer at 50 and had his taken
out.... and is on synthroid and fine today.
Meanwhile it's off to a conference in Orlando where I am giving a pitch on Day 4 of 5.
And hoping to attend classes. Sunday is fine and there's no news, of course. Monday the results must have come in because there was the doctor's call to my home phone but I got the message at 4:45pm. No diagnosis... but suddenly I was worried again. Ok so I'll call the
doctor's office first thing in the morning. And the doctor is very practiced at not tipping his
hand... so Monday night, I slept soundly and Tuesday morning I decided, I'd better lift weights because I sure wouldn't want to exercise later if I got bad news at 9am.
Off to the conference at 8:15am and eat a quick breakfast but decide against coffee.... That was
a good idea I think! I don't trust the sound quality on my cellphone outdoors where it's going to be pushing 80 degrees, so I go inside and use a payphone and a calling card number.
Over and over I call, and finally the secretary puts me through to the doctor. And my life
changed when I heard these words: "Uhmmm geez, you're out of town this week, when do you get back?" I tried not to freak out, standing there with Disney music playing softly in the background. I said: "Doctor it sounds like you have bad news for me".
He said back: "I'm sorry it is bad news, you have Thyroid Cancer but it's the best kind you can get." Well I lost it but didn't cry, more like I hyperventilated. Then we talked turkey and
he recommended a thyroid surgeon. Wow, from ultrasound to surgery... in 2 weeks.
Look, I know what my fate would be in the 3rd world, or even the second world.... these are
slow growing cancers but they can eventually spread, so in a decade or less, if I grew up
in Pakistan or Jamaica, or Niger, I would be prepared for disease and death even though
papillomal Thyroid cancer is 99%+ curable, especially if the lump is investigated fairly soon.
But I'm spoiled here in the first world, I'm 49.9 years old. With surgery I won't necessarily have to die by 55 or sooner.
Now yesterday I visited the surgeon and I needed a thyroid function test (just to make sure my thyroid isn't hyperthyroid because that's a surgery risk, even if you are getting rid of the thyroid).
Usually cancer is present with no change in overall thyroid function. But sometimes by pure
accident really, both diseases can be present. And the doc will probably look down your
throat to see if your vocal cords are involved - he goes through the nose to do this but as squeamish and bigbaby as I can be about some procedures, this was fine... except the decongestant caused an anaphalactic reaction and I sweated profusely and nearly fainted.
Then he ordered an MRI to check if my lymph nodes were involved yet. Even if this is the case, they can dissect the nodes and remove cancer during the thyroidectomy, but the like to know ahead of time... also it can show the presence of cancer since a biopsy can be misread by
a pathologist and you can always get your slides fedEx'd to another pathologist... one the surgeon likes to work with. Sometimes they see weird cells but never know what you've got.
Anyway, I'm awaiting these last results, I'm scared as hell of losing my singing voice during the
operation, which can happen but I also know that life is good in other ways and I can give up singing to be alive.
Oh and a funny thing happened after I got the bad news about Cancer... I found a job to take the place of my current job that is ending. This happened 2 hours later...
All in all it was a Black February and one crisis just segued into the next, seamlessly.
/Paul
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