Not the News I was hoping for...

Last week I mentioned an upcoming ultrasound of my neck. Unfortunately there were a couple suspicious nodes, that if positive, suggest persistent disease. The endocrinologist seemed pretty certain that those nodes are likely the source of my elevated thyroglobulin (TG) , a level that should be heading down toward zero if the surgery and radioactive iodide were successful. The next step is therefore having a needle biopsy (FNAB = fine needle aspiration biopsy ) to get a sample and test to see if any cancer in it. If it's positive, there will be more surgery in my future. If negative, I guess I'll be having some kind of scan to see where else the source might be hiding.

I feel almost like I'm starting all over again. It was July last year that I had the first surgery, an open biopsy, that diagnosed the cancer in the first place. I never saw the movie Groundhog Day, but I'm feeling like a Groundhog Year. I'm hoping for better outcome the second time around.

Wednesday is the needle biopsy, then I'm sure it will be a couple more days before the pathology is back. Time is moving really slowly right now.

One year

It's been a year now since I discovered the lump in my neck that turned out to be Thyroid Cancer. I'm happy to say that I generally feel fine. I haven't had the problems managing my synthroid (thyroid hormone) that many in my shoes have and I am thankful for that. I have earned 2 scars on my neck, one short on the side of the biopsy and the other long across the front of my neck and up the same side as the biopsy. I am also thankful for the good genes that allowed these to heal so nicely. I dealt with radioactive iodide treatment and temporary seclusion from my children (and patients) that went along with that.

Now I deal with background concern of whether this cancer is completely gone or not. It is not an overwhelming worry, but it is always there like a dripping faucet I've become used to. Most of the time I don't really notice it, but if it's really quiet and I'm not occupied by something else, I hear it. As I said, I'm feeling fine, but recent lab tests showed my thyroglobulin (Tg) went up ever so slightly since last time when it should have gone down. Now I have another ultrasound in my future. I try not to think much past that, so I'll try to keep occupied.

On the very positive side, my mother and father who I previously reported had breast and prostate cancers respectively, are doing very well. They both finished treatments over a year ago have been back into the swing of things for a while now.

I'll try to check in after the ultrasound with an update.

Long time

I haven't been here for more than a year and it's too late to go into detail right now, but it's been quite a year, well, 6 months anyway. This summer I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. It's been a roller coaster of emotions since then, not to mention dealing with a couple of operations. If you ask people, they may tell you, oh yah, that's the good kind of cancer. It may not be as bad as some, but there is still nothing good about it. You can visit the thyroid cancer awareness facebook page to get an idea of what a lot of us are dealing with.
I've spent a lot of time exchanging views, experiences, and information with the good people who post on that site, but one of them came back to blog spot with her experiences, and I thought I might try to get back here as well. We'll see if I can stick with it. Even if I don't keep it up for long, I hope I can help someone else out there dealing with this, or trying to help a loved one deal with it.

I said last time I still had a few things to rant about in regard to public schools, so here we go. First, I recently had the parent of a 5 year old kindergartner come to me because the child was having behavior problems in school. These had, believe it or not, led to his suspension on more than one occasion. After some discussion and we agreed that there were some underlying issues which warranted evaluation by a specialist, but the bottom line to his "acting out" was boredom and frustration. His first teacher had brought him extra work that was on his level since he was ahead of the other kids. When she was moved up to first grade, the new teacher, new to both the profession and the class, did not do the same and he got upset when he had to do things he's known how to do for a long time. A few days after the visit, I had a message from her to please write a note to school confirming our plans for him, as they were now threatening expulsion. I was dumbfounded. I truly couldn't imagine that people supposedly trained in education could even consider that expulsion of a 5 year old made any sense. I told them so when I wrote the note mom asked for adding that I couldn't believe they weren't trying to formulate a plan to help the mother and child by trying to get to the root of his behavior rather than expelling him. What next, tech school for toddlers?

My next beef may not really hit home unless you're the parent of a child sent home my a school nurse for some terrible, deadly illness like .... pinkeye or ringworm, not. I'll grant you, these are a nuisance and can be contagious, but sometimes you'd think they had the plague or leprosy the way the schools treat it. The problem is they have state health department guidelines for these things, but they overreact and don't follow them. Pink or red eyes that are not accompanied by yellow mucous, pus, etc. and no fever, can stay in school, but one mention of a little pink color and out the door they usually are sent. Similarly, if kids have ringworm lesions that can be covered up by bandages or clothing, they can stay in school, but not if the wrong person sees it. They'll come up with all sorts of reasons to send them home, "it's too big", "it's been there too long". Recently a parent had to bring their healthy child in for a strep test because there had been many cases recurring in their class. This might sound reasonable, but the information they were basing this request on, that was based on a "medical opinion", was almost completely erroneous. All these things lead to missed work days for many parents, increased medical spending for parents, and yes, getting me fired up. I usually find it necessary to add my 2 cents to the notes the schools ask the parent to have me write. Another thing that bugs me about all this is how picky they want to be about having all the right forms filled out and doctors notes for return, yet they can send kids home based on emotional responses, like the dreaded fear of pinkeye, while completely ignoring the guidelines. I'll admit, there are a lot of good school nurses out there who really know how to handle tough situations, like seizures and asthma attacks, but I just wish they wouldn't get so excited about the minor things.

Every day it seems that we doctors are asked to fill out more and more forms, so it's really frustrating to have to spend more time writing notes about the things I mentioned above.

Alright, I'm done for now and I feel better to have expressed that to a larger audience.

The photos tonight are 1. bald eagle at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, 2. my son "riding" a canon at Yorktown, 3. Sunset over Chesapeake Bay

Good night.

Ranting about .....

As usual, it's been another couple months since my last entry, so there are oh so many things I can talk about, some of which are reasons for not allotting my time to this blog. The first is a nice one, vacation. We went to Williamsburg, VA for the week starting with Holy Saturday. It was a really good trip. Normally I would prefer to south, but there aren't many options for exchanging a time share last minute over Easter break, so to VA we went. The resort was nice. We've gotten a bit spoiled staying apt. style, but for a weeklong stay, it sure beats a hotel room, and the extra space keeps the kids from getting on each others nerves too much. The weather was fab, cool early in the week, and warmer as it went along. By the end of the trip we were in shorts. We wandered thru Colonial Williamsburg, had two great days at Busch Gardens, a day playing golf in Va. Beach, a day at the Jamestown settlement and museum, and an hour at Yorktown. The first day at Busch Gardens was a little drizzly and overcast, so the park was wide open. It was great, hardly any waiting even at the big coasters. T and I could easily take turns going on the bigger rides together with one of the older two kids without taking forever, and while waiting, we could get onto one of smaller rides with our youngest. It was also the first time at a big amusement park with kids and no stroller, in part because our youngest is 7, and the park isn't nearly as spread out as Disney, though there seemed to be as many rides. It was very liberating! I was really impressed with the museum at Jamestown settlement. I would highly recommend it if you are in that area. The golf was at the course run by a pro, Dean, who was the assistant pro at the course where I grew up playing. I haven't actually seen him in probably 30 years, but my brothers have, and it is really amazing how you can instantly feel the same connection you had so long ago. Back then I spent a lot of time hanging aroung the pro shop when I didn't want to practice and thus goofed around with the staff and had a few nicknames. When I called Dean and gave my nickname, he knew who it was almost immediately and after that, it was like no time had passed. He most gracioustly let my husband and I play his course and gave us an extra cart so the kids could ride along. I must add that this was a very nice course in Virginia Beach. All in all, the trip went pretty much without a hitch. All vacations must end, and as usual the return to reality often gives more work than seems fair, and this was no exception.
On the second day back at work after working late, I stopped at the grocery to get one item and apparently left my wallet sitting at the checkout or dropped it, leading to my first rant. Unfortunately some not very scrupulous person picked it up and decided to use a couple credit cards. I was not even aware the wallet was missing until T called with a message that a credit card was asking about some purchases that morning. I told him "not me" so tell them to cancel, then discovered the missing wallet. As any of you who've had similar misfortune know, it really isn't the money unless you were really carrying a wad of cash. The card companies take care of the fraudulent charges. It's the sense of violation, followed by the hours on the phone and computer cancelling cards and having items replaced. I ordered my credit reports and found an incorrect previous address (from before the theft) and had to go thru the added steps of desputing that on each report. Thank goodness I think I've done most of what needs to be done on that front. Of course, tax info needed to be gathered and taken to the accountant at the same time. The icing on the cake, we had to pay some federal back for the first time ever. Yuck. After that, we did get to have some fun at a costume party with the theme "so you want to be a rock star". T was a rhinestone cowboy and I was an old Tine Turner with the long straight hair, at least that was what I was supposed to be even if I didn't look much like it. The following day, I came down with a case of laryngitis and had to nearly whisper my was thru a week of patient care.
This past weekend I took P, my 10 year old to a national chess tournament in Atlanta. It was a HS event, but open to all grades K-12. Most of his opponents were a lot older, but he still managed to ge a few points.
Well, it's gotten really late and I haven't even gotten to my ranting, but the preview is that it has to do with schools and their inability to exercise common sense in bothe the educational and health/medical arenas in regard to students and their families. I'll try to get back to this in a day or two.
good night

Catching up on this and that...

It's been a long time since I've even had much of a chance to think about a topic to post, let alone sit and post an entry that I feel compelled to do so now. It's quiet, not too late, and no pressing last minute jobs to do like studying for boards or sending out birthday invitations, so even though I don't have any particular subject in mind, I think I'll just ramble on the keyboard a bit. My spouse hasn't really been talking to me for a few days and won't tell me why, so I'll just pretend someone is listening.

Let's see, where to start. I think I mentioned last fall that my mom was diagnosed with breast ca. Since then, she had surgery to remove the tumor, but didn't require mastectomy or chemo. She finished radiation therapy last month and if all goes well, that will be it! Another one of life's hurdles cleared. Thanksgiving was great because we had a house full of people. My mom and dad, my mother-in-law, and my brother-in-law, S, and his wife, C were with us. It had been along time since we had family stay with us and it was really nice.

The weekend before Christmas was spent in NC with my husband's side of the family. The rough part was coming home really early Christmas Eve with very little sleep and stilling having a lot of preparations to do, but we made it and things were ready for Santa by the time we went to bed. I'm happy to report that we had nowhere to go on Christmas day and I never got out of my pajamas.

January brought a mixture of emotions. S and C got to visit the baby girl who will hopefully be joining them in the states in a few months, but during the same trip, C's father lost his battle with cancer. I think he was a really great person. Two of my own children had birthdays, my son,P, now 10 and my baby girl,K, now 7. Both chose to have good old fashioned parties at home, even with the offer to have it at an outside location. I think both of them and their friends had a fun at each. For those of you with young children, you likely know what webkinz are. That was the theme of K's party. All the little girls brought their favorite webkinz, made a crown for it, went on a gem hunt and used the gems to decorate the crown, and then had a candy land type game spinning a wheel of fortune type spinner (the wheel of wow) to pick the color. P and his friends played foosball, ping pong, and capture the flag, and finally took turns dropping a beanbag with their feet onto a target while riding down a zip line. No injuries!

My oldest, closing in on 13, had a valentine's day dance to go to. All the girls got dresses and made a big deal out of getting ready, nail polish and straightening hair, etc. It was funny, because for the most part, they were still pretty well divided into groups of mostly boys or girls when i saw them. I'm sure that won't last much longer, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can. I am glad they had fun, because I was feeling a little guilty about making her upset earlier in the day. We had to meet with the guidance counselor to make some class choices for next year. Basically it boiled down to what level math and english (regular, college prep, or honors), and what language. Both her math and english teachers recommended her for the honors level in each, so I figured it was a no brainer to choose those. She felt a lot differently and was brought to tears before I relented and let her back down to cp in the english, with the counselor guiding me that way. I had no idea she was so stressed about the honors, because she gets good grades now with what doesn't appear to be much effort. Thinking about it later, it is just 8th grade, as long as we don't let her go too easy, it's not apt to be a life changing decision, and since she'll be thirteen, it will probably make all our lives better next year. As I eluded to earlier, I had to take an exam to recertify for my boards. I was otherwise so busy that I didn't have time to stress over it, or prepare for it for that matter. I just took the practice test and hoped for the best. It had to be taken at one of those testing centers, almost 4 hours at a computer. I am happy to say, that I did pass, Yeah, and even better, I only had to wait a week for the results. I am now a board certified pediatrician for another 7 years. I am also getting to be tired as the time ticks later so I'll wrap it up soon. The last month has been pretty busy in the office with the flu upon us, so my days are pretty steady. It's good for business, but I do fall behind on all the admistrative type stuff, forms, returning calls, resident evaluations, etc. I'm quite happy that we are closed on Monday since we are a university office.

Good-bye for now. I hope I didn't bore you too much. Next time, more interesting fodder, tales of laser hair removal!

Reunions

I recently received an invitation to my 25th high school reunion. Due to several factors, short notice, busy time of year at work and school, the fact that I live 10 hours away by car thus requiring a plane flight for a short weekend, and that my parents will be out of town, I will not be attending. Initially I was not that disappointed. I've only kept in touch will a few old classmates, most of whom will not be attending. But after spending several evenings this past week going thru old photos and emailing them to a classmate who is preparing a slideshow for the event, I find myself a bit more disappointed that I'll be missing it. I'm not entirely sure why, nostalgia, curiosity, or maybe it's more selfish. Maybe it's a need to be remembered, a need to let them know that the girl they voted most likely to succeed (in a tie with another girl, a singer, even though I wasn't the most popular, or the prettiest or the funniest) has succeeded in some ways. Maybe because I feel I struggle in so many other ways to succeed in simple day to day things, like getting the kids ready for school without a mad rush, or to bed on time with all homework done, or getting places comfortably on time. Perhaps seeing myself thru the eyes of others who might be more likely to see the big picture of what I've managed to do thus far might be reassuring. Whatever it is, I hope I make it to the 30th.