Pathology is in

I'm home from the doctor's office, where in addition to checking in with Dr. Lee about my hypocalcemia, I also got to hear my pathology results, some pertinent details of which are included below:

• The tumor was 1.7 cm (about 1 cm larger than we thought), partially encapsulated, and malignant (papillary thyroid carcinoma, just as we thought) 
• 30 enlarged lymph nodes from the midsection of my neck were removed, and all were clean (no evidence of cancer - WAHOO)
• Parathyroid tissue was included in the pathology, which explains some of the parathyroid damage (still unsure whether it's temporary or permanent)
• Based on my age and tumor size, lack of apparent lymph node involvement, etc., that places me at a stage 1
• The tumor cells did not have any weird variations identified (in other words, I had standard-issue papillary carcinoma)
• When I still had my thyroid, I also had Hashimoto’s auto-immune chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis (chronic thyroiditis/Hashimoto's thyroditis/etc.)

All of this is very good news.  It seems* like they've got the cancer and we'll be following up to make sure with radioactive iodine treatment and scanning.  I will be having the radioactive iodine treatment once I recover, most likely in October (probably the first week or two of the month, right after I see Sufjan Stevens in concert!!).   

Even the Hashimoto's disease diagnosis was excellent to hear, because I've been having symptoms of thyroid disease for YEARS, and since about 2004, I have suspected they were thyroid-related.  In 2004, I went to an endocrinologist to get to the bottom of my exhaustion.  I had all of the symptoms of hypothyroidism and a few symptoms of hyperthyroidism to boot, here and there. Still, my tests came out in normal ranges.

Over the last year and a half or so as well, I've been gaining weight and swelling up with water in such weird ways, not in proportion at all to the amount of exercise I as getting.  As I wondered why, I kept hearing hints that perhaps I as just getting older and had to watch my weight better.  While I agree with that assessment, I also knew something was up.

And I was proven right - that I do suffer from thryoid disease - when they tested my removed thyroid. It saddens me to realize that I probably wouldn't have been diagnosed by my current endocrinologist had it not been for the cancer finding; my surgeon, however, preliminarily diagnosed me with it before he even saw the test results.  Because he's a genius and I love him.

Ah, well. At least they caught it all - and I'm relatively young.  Many women have to be in their 40s before they find out what's really wrong with their thyroids. 

So I'm glad on all fronts at this point.  More blogging soon.


* If they didn't get all of the cancer, we'll find out as a result of the iodine scanning in October.