THE VERDICT IS IN. “Suspicious for papillary carcinoma” is now a confirmed diagnosis of papillary carcinoma – a type of thyroid CANCER. The BIG C word – I know right? It’s scary!
So how did I even know to get checked out?! Honestly, this was an incidental finding, but I will share how I was feeling up until the diagnosis.
Starting about a month prior to the diagnosis, I had been feeling very fatigued. I have always been someone who needed about 7 hours of sleep daily in order to function. The past month I was requiring a full 8 hours. Whenever I got 6 – 7 hours 2-3 days in a row, I would feel drained before the end of the work day. I should preface that I work 10 hour days, and I work 7 days on and then I’m off 7 days. The fatigue was not just a feeling of being “tired.” I was also very unfocused at work, only able to complete the bare minimum. This was very unlike me because I often take on more responsibilities when possible in order to improve my work flow efficiency. When I got home, I didn’t want to cook. I know for most people this seems like everyone, but cooking is my stress reliever and I cook when I’m bored and is more of a hobby than a chore for me. After a few days of decreased sleep, I had to make up for the lost sleep, and it wasn’t until my week off that I would feel “back to normal.”
Another symptom that developed prior to my diagnosis was the new onset of migraines. All of my physicians have since stressed that this is more like a coincidence, and that the migraines are unlikely related to the papillary carcinoma, but I’ve never had migraines before, AND they were DAILY. My husband is a chronic migraine sufferer, but until I experience my own migraine, I could never empathize with him. I understood that it can be debilitating because my husband sometimes vomits due to migraines, but it wasn’t until I experienced one that I could truly empathize. If the migraines go away after surgery, it will only further solidify my belief that they were caused by the thyroid cancer.
Other symptoms you will see listed all over the internet included pretty severe constipation (about 3-4 days without a bowel movement), painful gas bubbles that wouldn’t pass, and dry skin. However, these symptoms have been pretty chronic in my life and I was dealing – so there was no reason for me to think this was something out of the normal.
So what made me go see my doctor? I had been feeling all of the above, and felt like I was about to get sick. You know…that feeling you sometimes get when you’re about to get a cold or the flu? I was a sickly child, so I was all too familiar with these pre-sickness symptoms. Fatigue, tired, tender lymph nodes on the throat, and just a general crapiness. However, after about day 3 of feeling like shit, I still didn’t get the stuffy nose, cough, fever or other signs of a real infection. And THEN I FELT IT AT WORK: A small lymph node on the underside of my chin about the size of half of your pinky finger. As I stated, I have been plenty sick in my life time with a record of 4 bronchitis episodes within a year when I was in high school. So I KNEW which lymph nodes swell when I get sick, AND THIS WAS NOT ONE OF THEM! I went on with my day secretly freaking out the rest of the day and scheduled a next day appointment with my primary care physician (PCP).
The next day, I went to see my physician. That day he had a someone covering for him because he was on vacation. Maybe it was luck? Or maybe my PCP would have also caught it? I will never know, but I can tell you I am grateful that it was caught. So after describing all of the above symptoms to my doctor, she ordered an ultrasound of my neck and a bunch of other labs for my peace of mind. We did it the same day. Being in healthcare and having a limited knowledge of ultrasound readings, I was watching the ultrasound while it was being done and I saw the nodule on the ultrasound before I got out of the room and before it was read. Oddly enough it WASN’T the lump I felt at work, but it was too late I saw a different lump on the ultrasound. I started internally freaking out because now I had to wait for the doctors to make it official even though I saw with my own eyes, but because I’m not a doctor, I couldn’t tell anyone so as not to worry others unnecessarily. When the report of the ultrasound was finalized – it read “suspicious for papillary carcinoma.” Since then, even though it wasn’t confirmed 100%, I was preparing for the worst – the Big C word – CANCER.
Raechel Zhao: The Bright Orchid Swallow (趙蕙燕) 