I might glow in the dark: Year 4

Today I begin the first step in my yearly cancer check-up.  I know what to expect.  There won't be any surprises. The first step is a visit to the endocrinologist's office. She'll examine my thyroid bed and my neck and hopefully she won't feel anything inside there.  There hasn't been anything in there since November of 2005 (except for the spring of 2007 where one crazy lymph node gave me a scare). We'll talk about what diagnostics are necessary to make sure that the cancer hasn't come back, that there are no thyroid cells floating around in my body. And then I'll make a bunch of appointments to carry out those plans.  I might wind up on the dreaded low iodine diet. I'll spend a lot of time at the hospital one week. I'll get some shots.  I might get some radioactive iodine. I might have an uncomfortable neck ultrasound. I'll have a blood test or two. It will suck, but I've been through it several times before. No surprises.

So why do I have an ominous feeling this year?  Why have I spent the past two nights filled with panic over seeing her?  For one, I am symptomatic.  I have trouble swallowing.  That is the only symptom that I noticed before my initial diagnosis.  It's the symptom that led my surgeon to take out the "nodule" on my thyroid after my biopsy didn't show any cancer.  It's that symptom, that nodule that turned out to be part of Stage III tumor. It's probably about 10 times more likely that any trouble swallowing I have is related to my queen-sized tonsils rather than a tumor.  After all I have had 4 doctors feel my neck recently and not one of them has found any cause for concern.  But still the panic lingers...

It's more than worries about tumors that causes me to dread this check-up.  It's the reminder that I am a cancer patient.  That at any time in my life, those crazy thyroid cells could start growing again...that the cancer could make a repeat performance.  The reminder that thyroid cancer can come back after 20 years. I will never be done with this.  Every morning of my life, I will wake up needing to take Synthroid to replace my thyroid hormones and fool my brain into thinking that nasty thyroid is still there. Every morning I will feel nauseous as I wait out the recommended time to eat breakfast.  Taking pills on any empty stomach has never agreed with me. I will always see that scar on my neck first when I look in a mirror. And I will always need an endocrinologist.

And last but certainly not least, there's the survivor's guilt.  This time last year my Dad was just about to start his cancer battle.  A battle that he lost.  On the day I was diagnosed, during my long walk out of my doctor's office I made a bargain with God/the universe/some higher power.  I would be sick, but I would be the only one who experienced the big C.  I would take one for the team.  But cancer would leave the rest of my family alone. That was the deal.  Was I not sick enough? If I had anaplastic thyroid cancer instead of follicular/papillary would it have been enough?  Was it because I didn't need chemo?  Is that why he got sick and I got to live? I remember taking him to radiation and chemo.  I remember him asking me "Is that what it was like for you?" And I remember a crushing feeling of guilt and sadness as I responded "No Dad, I didn't suffer like you do".  I still wish that I could have suffered more so that he would have suffered less.

In my head I know that I really don't have the power to make a bargain like that.  I couldn't guarantee to take one for the team.  But a small part of my brain says differently.  Along with that it creates the fear and the panic.  It whispers to me "maybe this time you won't be spared....maybe this time you don't deserve it".

But then I remember this:

July 13th, 2010 I celebrated 4 years of remission. This year at Relay For Life I wrote 4 years next to my name.  I'm kicking cancer's butt. I've been doing it for 4 years now.  I'm doing everything that's really in my power to win this.  That's what I know for sure.  The crappy part about cancer though is that is all I can count on.  But maybe that's enough?  Enough to get me through to year 5 anyway right?