If this picture grosses you out, just cover it up with your hand while you read this. It scares me every time I look at it but it makes things easier for me to understand. The ground beef looking butterfly around the trachea is the thyroid. That is where my cancer is. The right side of my thyroid has 3 tumors (goiters). Two of them are cancerous, one is not. All three of my tumors are on the right side of my thyroid. The suspicious lymph node is behind the Jugular vein (the blue one).
Today I met with the first surgeon who I was hoping to go with. He came in and started feeling my neck trying to find the swollen lymph node with his hand. Long story short, he said that because of the location of the suspicious lymph node, he did not feel comfortable doing my surgery and that I needed to go to “Dr. Kurakula”. Apparently, the lymph node that is suspicious is really deep in my neck and behind a really BIG important vein. I already had an appointment scheduled with Dr. Kulakula for next Tuesday, so looks like that is who I will be going with. Today I realized a few things.
1. pictures scare me
2. There is a chance the lymph node in my neck is not cancerous, just swollen. When the surgeon goes in for the surgery, after he removes my thyroid, he will swing around the jugular vein to look at the suspicious lymph node. He may do a fine needle aspiration right there to decide if it is cancerous. If it is, he will likely remove a series of lymph nodes over there. If it is not, I may not have to get any removed. Please pray the cancer has not spread to the lymph nodes. Things are a lot simpler if I just need my thyroid removed. The doctor also gave me a picture of a model with a “slit” in her neck. He was showing it to me to “show me exactly where he would be cutting” what was the point of that???? Seriously, do I care if it’s an inch up or an inch down NO! Either way, it’s still my neck!
Oh my, I need to get my mind out of the gutter. So that’s the update. Please keep praying for us. God has provided us with a teenage girl to baby sit for us who comes from a wonderful home and is home schooled so she has a flexible schedule for these kind of appointments. Her mom even came over this morning to help her get used to the kids after we left. That is a BIG praise! Those 4 kids are my biggest concern right now so it’s great to know they are safe and in good hands during these appointments.
For those of you that have prayed for Silas, he’s finally taking a pacifier! It’s so cute and I’m down to only nursing 1 time a day. I found some good bottles too. I think I’m the one having a hard time with it now. It’s just sad. Yesterday everything hit me. There are waves where I get sad and fearful of the future and how life may change. I just need to think of the God of my fathers and how HE has ALWAYS taken good care of me.
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