Had my appointment with the doc today. Prognosis of success is 95%+.
I’m also getting a big schooling by seeing the lingo used appropriately by a true professional. My ignorance is profound in that realm, I’m happy to have Dr. Pavlovich as a schoolmaster.
It does seem that, if one is going to get some form of cancer, a ‘well defined’ Thyroid cancer is a preferable option. It’s seems to be the one type of cancer that can be targeted very specifically with chemotherapy and in my case that means radioactive Iodine therapy.
Lingo alert, chemotherapy or chemo is just some form of ‘chemical therapy’ and there are a variety of chemotherapies. My brain made a new path when that clicked, I could consider aspirin as ‘chemo for a headache’ and alcohol a ‘chemotherapy for shyness’ and THC as ‘chemo’ for pain and…
That is an amazing idea. Chemotherapy isn’t always a nasty, sickening, life threatening treatment that’s going to make me lose my hair and wish I were dead.
Hopefully this idea also makes it easier for the people around me to understand that too.
The rest of my Thyroid will need to come out before the radioactive Iodine therapy. I learned today that one of the big reasons for that is the follow up.
As you probably know, one of the big problems with cancers in general, is that some of the members of the original colony are inevitably unhappy in their hometown and of course they decide to go on ‘walkabout’ and they can end up establishing new colonies in parts unknown.
After my doc is done with the dissection of my neck (I’m still not comfortable with that description) and the Endocrinologist finishes the initial radioactive Iodine therapy the hope is that I’ll be free of both the cancer and any thyroid cells.
The ‘follow up magic’ is in having ‘no known thyroid cells’ in me, that means there should be no thyroglobulin produced in my system. Going forward from there as long as testing reveals no thyroglobulin, that is a good indicator of no cancer.
Things are looking good so far.