Hello, my name is...
My name is Christine, I am 25 and I was diagnosed with Medullary
Thyroid Cancer on May 31, 2016.
“You have cancer!” Bahm, there it was. The
diagnosis I dreaded for the last little while. How do you react to this news? How are you supposed to react? Cry? Listen? Pray? I did all of it. As I sat in my doctors office getting the worst news of my life. All I could do was cry silently. Listening as the doctor explained the next steps. Praying to God to keep me strong and help me through this.
The Beginnings
But maybe let me back up to the beginning. I started
noticing some issues about 1.5- 2 years ago (2014/2015). The first thing I can
remember was very weird neck spasms. They would leave me in tears and unable to
move at times. The first couple of times I noticed it while driving. Someone
would cut in front of me and my spasms would start. Here I am trying to focus
on driving as the tears are running down my face. Few minutes and lots of deep
breathing later the spasm is gone and its like nothing ever happened.
The first time I ever mentioned it to my family doctor he
was confused as to what could be causing such a bizarre reaction. However,
since other family members have had issues with mental illnesses, he told me
its the most likely culprit. Maybe an anxiety induced reaction of my body. So
here I am in extreme physical pain. Being told it was all in my head.
For the next year or so I tried many different
approaches to reduce the pain. By now it had become a constant companion of my
every day life. I would not just have neck spasms but constant pain in my neck
and my upper back.
Attempting to find relief
I saw a physiotherapist around September 2014 who started
working with me on strengthening my back muscles and alleviate some of the
pain. At first it worked for a little while until it all of a sudden didn’t
anymore. I was in more pain than ever. Taking up to 15 pills a day, between
pain killers and muscle relaxants. Still I was only getting minimal relief. So
more physio, more massage. Finally at the beginning of 2015 I felt well enough
to cut back on the pain killers. I was able to go back to work full time.
For the next year I just figured I would deal with the pain
with the occasional pain medications and heating pillows. So that is what I
did. I work as a nurse in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. By that time,
almost all of my colleagues have seen me walking around the unit with my
heating pillow on my shoulders. Over the course of the year I started to have
more an and more medical complaints. I started having more frequent heart
palpitations and gut issues.
Throughout all of this my husband would tell me more and
more often to go see a different doctor. To get a second opinion. But I just
felt uncomfortable talking about it with anyone, even another doctor. What if
they also told me it was all in my head? What if they also didn’t believe me
how much pain I was actually in?
Instead of seeing another doctor, I started taking natural
anti-anxiety medications with little effect. All in all, nothing really
changed. My symptoms were still the same and slowly were getting worse. I just
learned how to live with the pain and discomfort.
Second Opinions
Fast forward to March 2016. I finally decided I had enough
of this pain and I couldn’t take it anymore. A new family doctor was in order.
I also explained my spasms to her. We decided we were going to start with a
full physical assessment and see what it said and then go from there. So, I
went for blood work, ECG and the actual assessment by my doctor… And
everything was NORMAL.
After talking to my mom a little more, she mentioned I
should ask my doctor for an ultrasound of my neck, so that’s what I did.
April 11, 2016 I went in for my ultrasound which was
actually quite painful anytime the tech pressed anywhere on my neck. A few days
later, I received a phone call from my doctors office asking me to come in to
review the results and that it wasn’t urgent. At this point I had absolutely no
idea what to expect.
Suspicions
I thought maybe I had some sort of muscle issues or maybe a drainage issue from my neck vessels. I went to go see my doctor on April 20th. She told me: “We found 3 nodules in your neck that are about 1.5-1.6 cm is diameter.
They don’t look like they are anything serious, but I am
going to send you for a Fine Needle Biopsy just to make sure”. One of my
first questions was if I was going to loose my thyroid and if that was the
case, was I going to be able to have children. She reassured me that it
probably wasn’t too serious but yes I would be able to have children.
I left the office and called my husband, Jeff, (who was at
work) from the car. It wasn’t until then that it hit me that there was a
possibility that I might have cancer. Since my husband didn’t answer I called
my mom. I told her the news as I was breaking down in my car. Shortly after my
conversation with my mom, Jeff called and now I had to tell him that I might
have cancer as well. He took the rest of the day off and came home to comfort
me. I cried and we prayed a lot, especially that first days.
Doing my own research
Over the next few days it was research time. What are
thyroid nodules? How often are they cancerous? Why am I always in so much pain?
Of course often times we go to worst case scenario instead of trusting God with
our future and knowing that He has everything under control. I started looking
at the different types of cancer, if indeed I would be facing cancer. Hours
later I knew that there are 4 different types of cancer. Papillary, follicular,
medullary and anaplastic.
Since most people deal with papillary or follicular cancer I
just skipped over everything else, thinking that I won’t have any of the other
cancers anyways. Now that I had somewhat of a diagnosis, I learned way more
about how my body was telling me something was very wrong. I started connecting
things that I hadn’t noticed yet at all.
For
instance, besides the neck cramps, I dealt with some gut issues for at least a
year as well as swallowing issues. My body just accepted and adapted to a point
where I wasn’t even noticing them. I was compensating without realizing, until
I paid more attention to it. To explain what I mean by that, let me give you an
example. I cannot drink or swallow without nodding my head in a some what
tilted position. Any neck extension at all and it is physically impossible for
me to swallow. So here I was with all this new and overwhelming information…
The mental journey begins
That first night was my first breakdown. I just sobbed while
Jeff just held me. So many things were running through my head. What if this
really is cancer? How am I going to wait up to a few months for the biopsy? How
would I possibly then wait for the results? Why would this happen to me? How
could this happen to Jeff? Why would he have to deal with this possible disease
for me? What is God trying to teach me through all of this? I don’t know how
long I cried that night. I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. Jeff’s strong
arms around me and praying to our heavenly Father for the strength we needed to
make it through the upcoming months.
I know many people don’t like to share this kind of personal
news with a lot of people. They go through all of it with only close family
members knowing about it. That was definitely not going to happen in my case.
One of my first thoughts, was that I didn’t want people to know and potentially
treat me differently. However then I started thinking more about it. What harm
could possibly come from sharing? The more people knew about my struggles, the
more people would storm heavens gates with prayer on my behalf.
My mom shared it in her Ladies Bible Study. I had the
opportunity to attend one of their sessions not long after. I was so blessed
and encouraged by all the love, support and prayers these ladies, and my entire
church family, were sending my way.
Testing begins
Then came May 24, 2016, the day of my biopsy. I was very
nervous and scared about the procedure. Since the ultrasound already hurt so
much, what would this feel like? I was fully awake with some local anesthetic
in place. If you never have had a Fine Needle Biopsy let me tell you, they
usually try to get 3 samples from each area that they are testing. This is to
ensure that at least one of them will yield a clear result. I was very thankful
when the doctor came into the room and explained that instead of doing this for
all 3 nodules, he would just do the one. We would then hope he would get good
results.
I was even more thankful about this once he started the
procedure. The first needle was still bearable. By the second, tears were just
rolling down my face. After the third one was finally done I could barely
contain the tears anymore. I have to thank my mom for being there with me and
comforting me through it.
Then the real waiting began. I couldn’t just go
on with life and not think about the biopsy. Thanks to the small bruise and
increased pain I was feeling from that nodule, it wad impossible. I was
starting to have more and more issues from that specific node which took almost
a full week to subside. By the time that was back to “normal”, it was
May 31, 2016.
The day that changed our life
Jeff took the day off to go to my appointment in the
afternoon. We had plans for the morning, including saying goodbye to by
grandpa. He flew back to Germany that day. We got up and started getting ready.
I was in the shower when my phone rang. A doctors office was on the phone
asking me why I wasn’t at the 8:30 appointment booked for me.
Turns out, my family doctors office had missed to tell me
about the appointment. They had made it for me at a surgeons office. At this
point we were already 20 minutes late. We had no idea where this doctor was
located, never mind what this doctor actually did. I googled that on the way to
the office. However the second I hung up the phone I turned to Jeff and said:
“I have cancer.” I just knew. Jeff being the voice of reason
encouraged me to not get ahead of myself and just wait and see what happens.
By the time we got to the doctors office it was almost 10
am. We were about 1.5 hours late for the appointment. The staff was very
understanding and ensured us that we would still be seen. I made sure to let
the receptionist know, I had no clue as to my test results. She said that the
doctor would do that for me. Sitting in that waiting room, Jeff and I both
tried to stay confident and positive, even once they moved us into an
examination room. That became very hard to do when Dr. S. walked into the room
and introduce himself. He then went on to tell us that my biopsy results had
come back as Medullary Thyroid Cancer, and here is what we have to
do…
