Today reading a moms post on my thyroid cancer support site it reminded me of how hard our first year of being parents were. We were first time parents to not just one but four babies and I had cancer. The thought of cancer is normally terrifying. I think of treatments, going bald and death. We lost my grandfather to cancer. He had lung cancer that spread to his brain and took his life. It was a hard and emotional time for my family. That's what I think of when I think of cancer. Now papillary thyroid cancer is way different than aggressive lung and brain cancer. But it's still cancer. I hate when people say,"well at least it's only thyroid cancer" really? Because it was a pretty hard recovery from having my neck sliced open! And it sucks having everyone stare at you because you have a scar that looks like a shark tried to bite your head off! Or having to take meds every day for the rest of your life because if you don't you literally go crazy. Or doing radiation and not be able to see your kids while it's in your body. Or always wondering if it will come back and you need more treatment. No cancer is "just cancer" don't ever tell some one with cancer that. Cancer is terrifying and it sucks. We never really talked about it when we found out. I was 21 weeks pregnant and had been admitted to the hospital for bed rest that very week. I had started to go into labor, they had stopped it but my cervix was shortening, we were afraid we would lose the babies. Any more stress on my already stressed body could cause labor to progress. So after we got the news we just had to put it out of our heads and not think about it till after the babies arrived. In the back of my head for the rest of the pregnancy I knew that I would soon have to deal with my cancer, but that just had to wait. They were delivered at 30weeks to the day. Thank god they did not have any major health issues and we just had to worry about them growing. At this point my neck was really swollen as the cancer had grew during my pregnancy. Pregnancy hormones can actually cause cancer to grow at a fast rate. All of my body was still very swollen from the pre eclampsia, which also really sucks by the way. My feet and legs were so swollen you couldn't even see my ankles! They looked like they were going to burst! Any way, when the kiddos were 3 weeks old I went in for surgery to remove my cancer. Lol I went into the pre op room with my Brest pump so I could pump before and after surgery, I was determined to continue pumping and later breast feed my babies. Well, 7 hours later I was out of surgery. Omg, my boobs were hard as rocks and hurt so bad. I was pumping every 2 hours, so a whole 7 hours of not pumping ... Ouch!!! Lol Andy and mom came recovery right after I woke up to pump for me, I was officially a dairy cow! They removed my entire thyroid and 49 lymph nodes on the right side of my neck.I don't remember much in the following weeks. Mostly, my neck hurt, I had no muscle control in my neck and it messed up my right arm, I couldn't really swallow, I was exhausted and felt like a crappy mom for not spending much time with my babies. My neck felt like a wet noodle. I couldn't really move it and needed a neck support pillow to help hold it up. It was very sore and shocked the muscles and tendons in my right arm, so I had a hard time lifting and moving that as well. The first week I felt like I was learning to swallow. Liquids would just slide down my throat and it was very difficult to eat. I had no energy, none! It was horrible, just being awake drained me. I tried to keep pumping but my body had been threw so much, I just could not produce. It was so hard accepting that I would not be able to breast feed. I know this may sound odd but that was probably the hardest emotional thing I went threw with all this. I could not feed my babies. The thing a mother was made to do, I couldn't. It was very difficult to accept. Now I know that even if I did keep trying to breast feed, even though I had a abundant milk supply, I wouldn't have the time or energy to keep pumping, even if I didn't have to do cancer treatment. The other hardest part emotionally was feeling like I was being neglectful to my babies. I felt that I should be at the hospital spending more time with them, and constantly felt guilty for only spending a few hours a day being a mom. Now I know that I was doing the best I could and wish I could just go back in time and tell myself to go back to bed and get more rest, lol because that would be the last time I was able to get sleep like that! About 6 months after that I did my radiation. The radiation wasn't the hard part, it was being off my thyroid meds for the month before treatment. Your thyroid controls your hormones in your body and basically controls
how your brain functions. With out your thyroid you basically go nuts. I couldn't think. I felt like my brain would get stuck. I couldn't judge if someone was being nice or mean to me. I didn't know how to properly react. I would get so tired I felt like I was going to collapse. It was so hard. So how do you care for 4 new borns, have no thyroid, and be kinda crazy? You have TONS of help! My mom has been with us almost my whole pregnancy and almost the whole time since the babies came home.we had our awesome army family and our base get together to organize help. We had the Mormon church in our area organize a army of people to be here on a daily bases. We had family and friends fly in to help. Organizations brought us food and things for our family. We had so much support from every one around us. There is absolutely no way we could got threw those times with out all of their help. It was amazing. We will always be so grateful for all that helped us in those hard times. My radiation was pretty easy compared to everything else, I took two pills and stayed in the hospital overnight. I felt sick and threw up a few times over the week, it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected.. I had to stay in a hotel for about a week because I couldn't be near the babies. Andy stayed with me and after a few days Sadie dog joined us. It was like the honeymoon we never had lol! A week of just hanging out in a nice hotel together watching movies, besides not feeling like crap and being radioactive it was kinda nice. So now it's been about a year since radiation. I still have cancer, but it's really just the left overs. There's not a concentrated cancerous area, it's just left over cells that the radiation did not kill. So my next step will be another body scan, and possibly more radiation. I have a appointment at the end of the month so we will have more info then. We are not in a rush, my cancer is non aggressive and very slow growing, so if more treatment is needed I doubt it will be any time soon. Well that's my cancer story! Guys and gals check your necks! Yes men can have it too! You can still have cancer even if your young. I was 23 when we found out. Your thyroid can still be working even if you have cancer, you may not even have any symptoms! ...now to figure out how to post pictures....
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