Thanks Rose. It’s been 3.5 years now since I went through that. When my surgeon informed me that the biopsy on the thyroid came back positive for papillary thyroid cancer I was in shock. I never had any issues with my Thyroid although my mother and sister, like you, are hyperthyroid. All of this was detected due to my primary care doctor doing a routine annual exam and feeling swelling in my throat glands. Otherwise I would never have known.
I was very lucky with a good team of experts- Dr. Joseph Quaranta, PCP, who did the exam that discovered the throat swelling; Dr. Thomas Takoudes, ENT specialist and surgeon; Dr. Lynwood Hammers, radiologist who does ultrasounds with needle aspiration biopsy to detect cancer; and finally Dr. Philip Goldberg, endocrinologist specializing in RI and treatment of thyroid cancer. All 4 of these gentlemen work out of Yale and are true professionals. When I discussed the radiological findings with Dr. Hammers he said to me, “the bad news is you have cancer. The good news is it looks very treatable and you live in absolutely the best place in the world to get thyroid cancer because of the people we have at Yale which are some of the best in the world.” He was right. It was the most professional treatment experience I could have imagined. I am very lucky and very grateful to these doctors and their staffs for the care they gave me. I did buy 3 dozen cupcakes for Dr. Q and his staff. I recommend all of them to anyone living in CT.
One thing I should add which is kind of funny. I am a glass half empty kind of guy so when I got the initial diagnosis and that I was stage 3 I assumed the worst. I formed a bucket list of things to do before I died and spent the summer of 2015 executing on that list. After the shock of having cancer melted away I felt strangely peaceful and serene. And ready to die if that was in the cards. I did a number of trips and vacations that summer, met old friends, and lived life as fast and full as I could. 3.5 years later I am still here and healthy and feel very fortunate.
Do not wait for something like this to happen. As Ferris Buehler famously said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”