Agenda for tomorrow

Well, I'm home from the hospital (BIG yay for that).   Hypocalcemia bites.  I was hospitalized on an emergency basis at a local hospital.  I summarized the incident in a recent post, but I'll probably write a lot more about it when I can stand to do so.  That time is decidedly not yet.

Meanwhile...

Tomorrow I visit with Dr. Lee for a check-in, a couple of weeks early in light of the hypocalcemia episode, and also to see if my pathology results are in (they took out the thyroid and a handful of other glands - handfuls of glands! haha! - and sent them for testing to see how much spread there had been from the initial nodule in the thyroid itself).

In our chat on the phone today, by the way, Dr. Lee explained that they had not removed my parathyroids, but they'd seen them and they'd had to peel my thyroid apart from them - so they could definitely have been traumatized, which could have caused Lisa's Hypocalcemia Incident of Ought Nine.

I know I should, but I can't get used to not having had a detailed ultrasound of my entire neck (rather than just the front/thyroid area) before the surgery to see if the spread had been more extensive within my neck than what they saw.  Logically, I know the following:

• They believe they caught the cancer early
• The iodine study will catch anything else anyway - and then a decision can be made about whether to yank more nodes through a more detailed surgery
• If there was significant lateral nodal spread (I just decided that was the technical term for it without consulting the big thyroid book) that couldn't be dealt with via iodine alone, they'd likely need a second surgery for it to avoid the trauma of dissecting my entire neck at the front, middle, and sides

So then why can't I stop obsessing...?  I think my mind needs something to pick apart at all times, lest it get lazy and relax or something.

And in other news...

I am sad that I couldn't try G's homemade soup; she had been planning to cook for me on Friday when all this ER business went down.

Spending time with a friend, who is also a professional chef to the stars and is planning to cook a health-giving soup for you is something not to be missed... but I missed it, because G (whom I hadn't seen in person in about two years or something ridiculous like that!!) showed up on Friday, just in time to help me unload the ingredients for the soup and then immediately haul into the cab with us for the ER trip.

What a wonderful friend she is, though.  Just that short time with G made me happy.  I hope the time together made her at least a little bit happy, too, because in addition to being out some nice ingredients (which she left for me, but I don't know how to make the soup), after two years of not seeing me, she suddenly got to see me feeling horrible.  I was almost out of calcium, which caused me great physical discomfort and caused cloudy, irrational thinking, I realized later.

So basically, I was acting like the usual anxious and irritable version of me when I'm stressed out, except multiplied by a factor of umpty-shitsticks.  When last she saw me, I looked like the village loon, freaking out vocally about catching simultaneous H1N1 and MRSA in the hospital emergency waiting room while concurrently getting angry with Jim for not being able to anticipate exactly what I was thinking and then take the only right action based no no input from me.

Ah, well. I hope to lure G back over here to cook some soup one day soon. While I have the ingredients, and she said she'd give me the recipe, I'd have to make Jim cook it or wait until I felt up to standing around and cooking, which I don't yet at the moment.  And Jim's been such a saint, I don't want to make him cook me soup in the summertime (G was volunteering, after all).

So perhaps I'll just lobby for a date with G when I'm functioning again, send back the non-perishables and eat the perishables, which happen to be a few deep green things. I do love those green things, which is a plus. And at least I still have the gorgeous flowers G brought.  They are absolutely incredible. I just wish I'd thought to bring them to the ER so I could have had them in my hospital room.  Then again, I would have done a lot of things differently if I'd known what was in store on ER night...

But that's another story for another blogging day.  Or for two hours from now, when I'm still wondering where else the cancer could be and simultaneously not sleeping.  We'll see what happens.

Home = happy

I'm home!!!

I just finished a three-day sojourn in a local hospital.  In the end, it wasn't nearly as bad as it was in the beginning.  I was hypocalcemic to the point where I was not in my right mind, and the ER visit/first night were, shall we say, traumatic at best.

The first thing I did as soon as I got home was cuddle with my doggie, and then I took a long, hot shower.  Now it's off to blow-dry my incision, eat a delicious lunch, and start making follow-up calls regarding the prescriptions I need to fill and the doctors I should be seeing this week.  I think I need to take calcium again soon and I'm damn sure not going to forget it.

I am so thankful at the moment for the Internet, because it enabled my incredibly supportive group of friends and family to rally around me during some extremely panicked moments!

xoxox

Wrong number

Well, I couldn't get anyone on the phone because I was calling the doctor's secretary's direct line, rather than calling the endocrine/pancreas center directly.  That'll learn me.  When I finally got in touch with a nurse, she was a great help, and she sent me for a 'stat' calcium blood test to ensure I can make it through the weekend.  Just got back - came home to a wonderful card full of iTunes gift certificates from my work team.

Will keep you posted.

My doctor's office doesn't really exist

I'm feeling like my lovely and well-appointed doctor's office, complete with its people and desks and air conditioning, was a movie set.  They've packed it in and moved on, perhaps to a movie hospital somewhere else...

We can't get anyone on the phone.

Not to be dense or anything...

Nurse: "What do you weigh?"
Me: "A lot. 1(edited) something, I think"
Nurse: "Well, 1(edited) what?"
Me: "I don't know my exact weight."
Nurse: "You need to tell me."
Me: "1(edited) *something* - I don't know anything else."
Nurse: "I need to know for anesthesia purposes."
Me: "Well, that's the best you're going to get because I DO NOT KNOW MY EXACT WEIGHT."

Finally she weighed me.  Wouldn't that have been the simpler route?  The whole way to the scale and back, she kept trying to explain how important it was and why I should have been comfortable telling her. When we got my exact weight, she gave me the "there, was that so hard," treatment.  The only thing that had been hard, however, had been convincing her that I DID NOT KNOW IT.

Fast-forward to the OR as I'm getting situated on the table.  They review my weight with me and I confirm it.

Anesthesiologist: "You really weigh 1(edited)?"
Me: "Yup."
Anesthesiologist: "Wow. I thought that was a mistake on your chart."
Anesthesiologist resident: "Yeah, you don't look it."
Me: "Well, that's flattering, but she just weighed me and I saw it."
Anesthesiologist: "You must be a very dense person.  You're denser than anyone I've ever seen.  You can't possibly weigh that much.  I really thought that was a mistake."
Anesthesiologist resident: "We'll just say 1(edited and rounded down) because I think the other thing is too high."

Great. I'm dense and I'm fat.

Not sleeping

On the plus side: I'm no longer having a meltdown.

On the not-so-plus side: I'm still suffering the effects of hypocalcemia, calcium pills, vitamin D, and all.  I'm awake at 12:03 AM.  I had fallen asleep on the couch.  Tried to make the transfer to bed an hour or so ago and found myself there, wide awake again.  

I'm still vibrating - legs, hands, sometimes my face. I guess they bumped my parathyroid around something fierce.  I feel like there's a generator behind my skin.  The feeling of vibration (as opposed to tingling, which I also have in my limbs) gets so intense sometimes that I am sure one must be able to feel it from the outside, like a thrumming motor, although even I, when I place a hand on my vibrating limb, can't feel it with that hand.

I'm wondering if this is the painkiller wearing off. I downed a small can of Sprite (one of those hundred-calorie deals) because I felt SO thirsty, but it made me nauseous, so I got up.  I am not sure whether that's the effect of the painkiller, too, although I'd eaten sufficiently when I took it.

I'm noticing my body is not reacting to food as I'm expecting it to. This could be because I stopped taking my Aciphex today on the orders of nurse mom because it interferes with calcium uptake, at least until I talk to the doctor yet again in the morning (his office opens in 9 hours).  

I expected the Sprite to settle my stomach: it didn't.  I keep getting hungry craving creamy, cheesy things (calcium-rich, I guess), but then feeling gross and full after I eat them.  (But don't worry, I'll manage to gain weight.)  

hypocalcemic meltdown

I'm apparently suffering from hypocalcemia.

I'm vibrating and tingling and it feels crappy.  My mom is giving medical advice to Jim for me because I don't want to listen because I'm having a meltdown.

I take Aciphex and apparently it counteracted my calcium.  I just got another prescription, too, for Vitamin D.

I'm also having a meltdown I weighed myself and I weigh 7 pounds more than I did on this scale two days ago, 4 pounds more than I did at the hospital, and 20 pounds more than I did at the beginning of last summer.

Mom's telling me to remember that my hormones are all out of whack, but I've got to say, what the hell?!

My incision today

Yay!  I've showered!  

I'm home!!!

Okay, so I'm really tired, and I have an annoyingly painful case of the hiccups - but otherwise, I'm feeling GREAT!  Thanks, Dr. Lee! :-)

As you can see from the picture, I'm home, minus one thyroid and several suspicious lymph nodes.  

I'm going to have some soup soon, and then go to bed.  I'll post more tomorrow.  In the meantime, thank you all, my friends, SO MUCH.  I can't imagine how much of a difference experience this would have been without your love, support, prayers, notes, thoughts, kindness, etc.  I can't believe how many wonderful people I'm surrounded by.  What an amazing thing to find out.

With love and gratitude!!!

Lisa

Off I go to the hospital

Leaving in 45 minutes (eek).  The surgery's at 10am.  If you want to know about my condition and you know my cell number, you can call late in the day (or one might say evening).  You can also call tomorrow.  I'm not sure whether I'll be there overnight or not.

Thank you to each and every one of you who has written, called, seen me, and kept me in your thoughts.  It means the world.

Believe it or not

One thing I like about today's doc (I like a lot about him) is that not ONCE did he write off all of my many symptoms as coincidence - or any of them.

He agreed with me on this: while hoarseness is a symptom of nerve spread (I think), I said I thought it was actually due to acid reflux.  He said, "yes, you're probably right, that's probably from acid reflux." Or some such.

However, he did not pick out a SINGLE symptom and say "yeah, that's just incidental..." Or "that's an interesting coincidence, but they're completely unrelated."  Or "I think you're wrong."

In fact, he thanked me for bringing things up, even if they were weird.

In fact, he says he thinks I've got Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which progresses from showing very little on the TSH results to eventually producing wonky levels (I think - still learning about it)... which could be why I've been having symptoms for several years intermittently (and others steadily).

In fact, when I brought up my difficulty regulating my weight, at no point did he say "well, as we get older, we have to learn to control our portions." Instead, he encouraged me to think I'll be able to regulate my weight, finally, once I get my TSH levels steady and I'm taking synthetic thyroid (I HOPE SO - AND I HOPE IT DOESN'T REGULATE UP!).

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for the referrals from the endocrinologist who was responsible for helping discover the cancer, but I'm still going to seek someone else after the cancer treatment, because the best I got out of my endocrinologist was that my symptoms could point to thyroiditis, but didn't require medicine.

Eh?  As it progresses, Hashimoto's obliterates the thyroid.  I think I'd prefer the medication.  What I don't get is that, assuming I didn't have cancer, she was just going to let me be sick - because she didn't identify that I even had thyroiditis, only the symptoms, and she felt that while I might have this collection of symptoms, they didn't mean enough for medication.

This is what I'm trying to explain when I say we need to advocate for our own care.  We have to push forward and know that if we don't feel right about a diagnosis, we can look elsewhere, that other doctors may - and do, and will - have other opinions that feel better to us.

Yes, I like to hear that something (not my crazy mind) has been causing these weird symptoms for the last few years.  It's so simple, really, for a doctor to win my heart.  All s/he needs to do is: 1) be one of the best in the field (go Lisa's surgeon!), and 2) listen and not tell me I'm wrong (see previous parenthetical).

That's really all I ask.

I found my surgeon - surgery on Wednesday

Today's consultation with the surgeon went very well.  In fact, I have a surgery date, assuming that what I'm feeling in my neck/throat/glands is not the beginning of a cold!  I'm scheduled to go under the knife on Wednesday of this week at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, waaaaay uptown enough so as to be Harlem, I believe.  Apparently, I won't even have to stay overnight in the hospital unless they feel the need to keep me.  The recovery (before I move to the radioactive iodine phase) will be about a week, I'm told.

More tomorrow.

Pristine necks: get them while supplies last

Today's agenda, plus anxiety

It's 5:30 AM. At 8:30 this morning, I have a consultation with a thyroid guy at Columbia University Medical Center (or whatever that medical center is called). From his resume, the guy looks to be exactly my age, which is a little odd, but he seems to be an expert in thyroids and the endocrine system.

This morning I've been worried about it being in my lymph nodes elsewhere, although I -

YIKES! Watching the news and a wave (sent via Hurricane Bill) swept three people out to sea - I just typed "see" - a little girl died and two were rescued. The wave was in Southwest Harbor, Maine, at a platform in Acadia National Park. We always stay right near Southwest Harbor when we go!! We've never been there this early in the season, though. Well, I have been there as early as July, but not Jim. Is this perspective-giving? Yes. Am I extremely open to perspective at the moment? Not extremely. Perhaps just somewhat.

Anyway, yeah, this morning I've been worried about cancer being everywhere. I'm not sure how I got this idea in my head. I guess maybe that's just what happens when you mix cancer with a paranoid/anxious person who is up suddenly, and too early.

So I have to remember to ask the doctor this morning how they can make sure it's not everywhere.

Also, what Jim and I call my "brain worm" has been super-insidious lately (meaning I can't remember shit from moment to moment). I forgot what cerignola olives were called for nearly 24 hours until I looked it up with a Google search on "what are those big Italian olives with the pits called." I'm going to hope that effect is produced by anxiety.

Also, I've had pain in my body elsewhere, corresponding with lymph node locations. Also, that other pain I mentioned is still hanging around, too.

I just coughed and it hurt my neck.

Can't wait to get coffee and stop the progression of the paranoia.

Thyroidoke

Had a great night of karaoke and thyroid cancer talk tonight with my friend Joel, pictured. Note that he's displaying his thyroidectomy scar. The part of the scar that runs up the side of his neck is from the removal of a large lymph node that was also affected by his thyroid cancer.

Taking Control of Our Health

I was having an email conversation with a friend of mine this morning (I'll call her C), who is complaining of some scary-sounding symptoms that she thinks could be thyroid-related. She has had much trouble finding a doctor in the Boston area to take her seriously, one who will offer her a consolidated picture of her care and embrace evidence that is perhaps less than empirical. At the same time, she's been doing what I have done in the past, what I'm trying not to do as much going forward: forgetting about a recurrent pain when the pain stops, and remembering it/getting worried again when the pain starts.

I'm sure one of the reasons we do this - we forget pain the second is gone - is to take care of ourselves. We tell ourselves that, since the pain is gone, nothing's broken. And if it ain't broke, we think, there's no need to fix it. Until the pain starts again, weeks or months later.

My recurrent thyroid pain - which I thankfully remembered to mention to my primary care physician, and which my doctors are still fairly certain is not actually thyroid pain - is what motivated my primary care physician to order thyroid blood tests. When those came back with a slightly abnormal result, he sent me to an endocrinologist, who felt there was nothing wrong but tested me anyway, in the name of being thorough.

I was very fortunate all around. I was fortunate my endocrinologist decided to be thorough and do a preliminary ultrasound. I was fortunate she ordered tests beyond the standard TSH and found elevated antibodies and thyroglobulin (tipping her off something might be wrong). I was fortunate that, even for the small nodule she found, she sent me for a biopsy. Ultimately, I was fortunate that my first blood test result came back abnormal, otherwise I'd probably not have made it to an endocrinologist at all.

I'm interested in the big picture of my health. I have had thyroid-related symptoms for the last four years, pain on and off for about two. The first endocrinologist I went to told me I was normal, so I accepted that. Would things have been different had I continued to investigate?

My experience over 10 years ago getting diagnosed with Arnold-Chiari Malformation, which I was told was an incidental finding and nothing to worry about (and which had actually been the source of my lifetime of headaches, as well as other mounting symptoms in my early 20s), taught me that I needed to take charge of my health. The Chiari experience taught me that I needed to learn my diagnoses and make sure that I was comfortable with what the doctors were telling me, that I was the only person who would or could advocate for me, because I was the only person who knew what was going on in my own body, regardless of what the doctors told me they thought was going on.

Now, here I am again with a diagnosis (thyroid cancer) that I'm attacking. The small bowel adenomas I found out about this past week will also need to be examined. The pain I've been having elsewhere will need to be addressed, too. Here I am writing about this in the passive voice, but I know that I am the one who will need to be in charge of learning about these conditions, that I'm the one who has to take control of my care, my body, my own health.

As a woman, I have a problem with listening to doctors, male and female, telling me I'm wrong about how I feel. I'm going to stop doing that. I'm going to stop ignoring symptoms, stop ignoring my instincts about my body. If a doctor expresses doubt, I'll gently disagree and keep moving forward, asking him or her to put aside those doubts and get me the care I need. If a doctor tells me I'm wrong, I'll find another doctor. In the grand scheme of things, I'd rather offend a doctor than miss something.

In that vein, I'm also going to keep pushing for a consolidated care model for my self, in which my doctor knows what's going on with me at all times. So far, my primary care physician has the whole picture, as I keep him posted on everything. He's a very thorough, caring doctor. I hope that he and I can take the first step together in my newest experience of being in charge of my health.

I will not forget that I'm the only one who can manage my care. And I hope my friend C will embrace this approach, too. Let's stop ignoring ourselves. We are too important to ignore. Let's care for ourselves - and recognize that we, above all others, are responsible for that care.

A&P Addendum

As I read it, I'm making Western practitioners sound like bad guys. I've actually appreciated the care I've been getting lately, which has been incredibly thorough. I adore my primary care doctor, and the doctors around me have been, for the most part, extremely vigilant. If I'm honest, a lot of the accountability when anything gets missed - when I'm paranoid and yet don't follow up, etc. - has to rest with me. Only I'm in this body. Only I know my pain.

A&P (Awake & Paranoid)

I have to confess that on most (if not every) night since the diagnosis, I've taken a drug to help me sleep. I did not take it last night because I was going to bed late and feeling super sleepy - also, because I had a race in the morning (a 5k, my last of nine I wanted to complete in 2009).

Some massive thunderstorms have now hit (it's 4am in these parts) and my dog feels that it's necessary to be awake and pacing, leading to me (her mom) being awake, too. Jim gamely attempted to come out to the couch himself, but usually once this happens I'm pretty much awake.

This thyroid diagnosis, along with other bodily woes, is weighing on my mind now. While this is my first experience of having cancer (and, I hope it's the last - over the long, long life that I endeavor to live), it's not the only really disturbing health scare I've had, not the only set of symptoms I struggled with until a diagnosis was made, and not the only time I've fixated on my health. While I hate the idea of being "sick," when I am sick, I do tend to become extremely vigilant and knowledgeable about my condition, which is something of a positive, I guess.

So on Wednesday, T+1 (thyroid diagnosis date + 1) another doctor (separate to the thyroid diagnosis) told me I had adenomas in my small intestine - what he said were rare and precancerous growths (rare to have them in the small intestine). He told me to worry about the thyroid first and then to follow up with him for more testing (but who can say if it'll be helpful) maybe in a year or two. The conversation was quite discouraging - he made these growths sound both destined to be cancer and simultaneously extremely rare, undetectable, and beyond scientific knowledge when they occur in the small intestine. I was later corrected, told that adenomas are benign until they turn into something else, which can take forever and can happen never. So that comforted me a bit, but I'm still going to follow up before a year or two has elapsed. I'm getting varying stories from people about these things. It's good to know in the short-term I'm not the ticking time bomb I thought I might be.

Elsewhere in my body, I'm experiencing another pain tonight. Those who are familiar with my somewhat substantial history of medical woes (four surgeries so far in the life of this 35-year-old) might be able to guess at where that pain is. For now, I'll just say that I once had emergency, life-saving surgery on the organ system that's giving me pain. Given the whole thyroid thing, how I wouldn't let that go because I knew something was wrong, I'm feeling like I need to start actively following this other thing through, too. I would chalk this up to late-night paranoia (which surely plays a role), but this has been bothering me for a couple of years, on and off - and I've been worried, on and off, all through. I've been to a couple of doctors who said I was probably fine, but really weren't concerned given my age and overall good health. And then meanwhile, I have only worried while the pain was bad and then stopped worrying when the pain went away - which is sort of how I was with the thyroid, too.

I am tempted to follow this pain up as well, and be extremely tenacious, on the one hand. On the other hand, I'm tempted to shut this down, insist to myself that whatever it is probably has an explanation that is not cancer, and deal with the thyroid first. And yet this worry nags at me.

So tonight (this morning, actually), I wonder, can a little bit of a lesson be dangerous? If I know that my instinct was right on about my thyroid - that there was something wrong in tham thar thyroid parts, based on a knowledge of my own body, coupled with some obvious symptoms - it stands to reason I should listen to my gut more often when I have pain, coupled with some obvious symptoms. Further, I know that last time I had problems in this other area, I knew something was wrong - I just didn't know what to call it (by the way, it wasn't cancer).

And yet, what if my gut is paranoid (in addition to containing adenomas)?

Oh, those self-sabotaging what-ifs!! Even as I write this, I know that it's wrong. How can body knowledge be thrown aside? Perhaps that's just the voice of evidence-based, Western medicine, coupled with a dose of my own (how you say? Skepticism? Insecurity?) responding to those crazy little things I have called instincts.

As I type away, outstretched as I am on the couch with laptop topping my lap, my dog has just decided the thunder has subsided enough for her to join me on the couch. She rests her warm chest up on my legs and then gingerly steps over them and attempts to both curl up and, at the same time, watch the window for signs that the storm might need her immediate attention again. After about a minute of this, the storm wins, she's off the couch, off my leg, and back to standing by the window, ears pricked up.

Perhaps I should take a lesson from her right now. It's great that she's so vigilant, but freaking out is certainly not helping her to get the rest she needs. Perhaps I don't have to pace and stare and stay awake, either, to be vigilant (aside from when my dog makes me). I'll call this other specialist on Monday to set something up and, until then, I'll try my best to let it go.

Pre-surgical Consultation # 1 - 8/21/09

Pre-surgical consultation #1 of 4 scheduled. Saw a doctor associated with St. Vincent's Hospital. Notes below:

- Thyroid feels a little firm on the left side
- 1.5-2 hour surgery, overnight stay
- Pain probably not related to nodules (Lisa is skeptical)
- Iodine treatment 4 weeks post-surgery
- Exam one year later
- Removal of thyroid can cause calcium levels to drop - calcium supplements may be needed
- About a week of recovery/week out of work after the surgery
- Uncommon surgical result that they are very careful to avoid, but possible - temporary or permanent vocal chord paralysis
- Two or three enlarged lymph nodes that will need to come out most likely
- Small incision, 2-3 inches, center of neck - heals clean
- Should have the surgery in 4-6 weeks
- Surgery would be at St. Vincent's
- Dr. does "one or two" thyroid surgeries a week
- Observed some redness in larynx and additional tonsil tissue
- Surprised MRI was ordered - is okay with it
- In surgery - will remove right lobe first and then send for immediate pathology to ensure no mistake was made in the initial pathology assessment before removing the entire thyroid (called a "frozen section")

So it begins...

Dear Friends,

On Tuesday, August 18, 2009, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, based on an ultrasound and fine needle aspiration conducted on Friday, August 14. The biopsy, of a small nodule on my right thyroid lobe, indicated papillary carcinoma. A number of other areas were highlighted for further exploration as a result of the ultrasound, including questionable nodules in the lymph nodes/parathyroid areas.

I'm sorry if you're finding out about it for the first time here on my blog. Please do not take it personally if you are. It's only been a couple of days since my diagnosis, during which time I've been trying to schedule many consultations and tests, and also get some work done at my full-time job. Hence, it's been difficult to let everyone know in a timely manner. I'm afraid, however, that if I hold out any longer so I can tell those of you I really want to call or email personally, I'm going to be "outed" any minute now on Facebook.

Again, then, my advance apologies if this is the way you're finding out. It doesn't mean I don't love you or want to tell you in a better way than this. I do.

Going forward, I hope to use this blog to keep in touch with you and give you updates on my medical status all at once. Because this is the most common question I've had since the diagnosis, let me first tell you the steps from here:

See a surgeon: Between now and September 3, I will have visited with four surgeons.

Get an MRI of my neck: Scheduled for Wednesday.

Run about from place to place, collecting results: Ongoing.

Schedule the surgery and the follow-up iodine therapy: Surgery will probably happen sometime in September; iodine therapy will happen 4-6 weeks after the surgery, assuming that my doctor wants to do it.

I will write more on my medical history, how I got to this diagnosis, and on the consultations as they move forward. In the meantime, more information on my condition can be found below, in some text from a really excellent message that Jim sent to some friends of ours:

"So, here's the news as we know it: Lisa has early stage thyroid cancer that may or may not have spread to the surrounding lymph nodes. (We'll get a better sense of this from an MRI next week and during the operation itself.) Treatment involves complete surgical removal of the thyroid plus any affected tissue, followed by radiation therapy. We're already meeting with various doctors and hope to get Lisa slotted for surgery in early/mid-September... It was caught early, so we've been told the prognosis for someone of Lisa's age/health is very good. We like hearing that sort of thing. :)"

That sums it up nicely, I think. Please feel free to contact me via phone or email if you'd like to talk - I would love to hear from you.

XOXOXO
Lisa