EDIT:

My scream into the cosmos has been heard!

"Hi [ZephMom],

The nodule was part of the thyroid and was benign. No Evidence of cancer. Nothing more needs to be done. Let me know if you have any questions. I hope your recovery has gone well. I will see you tomorrow.

Sincerely,

[Doctor]"

Guys, I literally cried in my classroom. Thank god it was break, and the kids had all left.

Thank you for everyone who sent well wishes. I really appreciate it.

Original log

Yesterday was a bad brain day, and I have no idea why.

Nothing bad happened, but it felt like something bad did. I emailed a kid's parents because he would not stop turning in AI work. It was (and still is!) SBAC testing schedule, so the first three hours of the day were spent in a quiet room of students who weren't mine, all politely taking a test.

My grandma and mom made stew.

I think what I'm really stressed about, when you dig around beneath the layers, is my mom's thyroid results and current lackthereof.

Thyroid Saga

Apologies in advance if this gets a little jumbly.

About three months or so ago, my mom was having jaw/tooth pain. She bounced around between her dentist, her orthodontist-surgeon-specialist guy who does her root canals, and the hospital: neither of the tooth docs could fins anything amiss, so it was determined that this might be a nerve thing, and she went to go get scanned.

During the scan, they found that she had a lump on her thyroid.

Sorta.

They did an MRI and, later, and ultrasound, and the lump did not appear to be actually connected to the thyroid, just tucked underneath it.

They did a biopsy on it-- ran a needle through it five times in one go-- and the results were inconclusive. They didn't find cancer cells, but they also didn't find any actual cells that could tell us what it was (apparently it was too cystic). One of the tests they did confirmed that it was 100% filled with thyroid juice/materials, though, so this wasn't, like, lung cancer that had spread or something.

Typically, lumps in thyroids are benign. Thyroid cancer in general is uncommon, and two of the three common thyroid cancers are slow moving, with a high cure rate-- in the 90-95% range. There's no such thing as a "good" cancer, but if you have to pick one, one of the common thyroid cancers seems like a safe choice.

The exception is the third thyroid cancer, which is incredibly rare and absolutely devastating. While normal thyroid cancers are super slow acting, the third one makes up for it by being extra fast acting and aggressive. As in, it could kill you within weeks, with a less than 20% survival rate past one year. By the time you notice there's a lump in your throat and manage to make it to the doctors, it's already fucked you.

(We are certain she doesn't have that one)

The issue with mom is this: because the lump is full of thyroid stuff, then the reasonable choices are:

A. It's part of-- connected to-- the thyroid (which it isn't)
B. It's not connected because it's a node of some kind that had cancer spread to it.

However, typically cancer starts in a location, and then spreads out. That's the whole point of the stages of cancer: early stages = cancer hasn't left the home territory yet. Late stages = it's metastasized and is spreading around.

When they scanned her thyroid itself, it was completely clean. Nothing on the inside or outside except for this one disconnected lump. The area around it was also clean; nothing going on in the rest of her neck or upper chest. Typically, thyroid cancer would be inside the thyroid, then spread, not pop up outside of it randomly.

Which means that a third option has entered the chat:

C. Some mysterious mutant third thing.

During this time, as more and more test results were filtering into her Kaiser inbox, we were frequently having panic attacks and doomscrolling trying to decipher what all the medical mumbo-jumbo meant, then her doctor would call and clear it all up and we'd relax.

Repeat cycle that for almost a month.

Finally, we and her doc decided the best thing to do would be to remove the lump and the section of thyroid it was beside. Apparently, with thyroid lumps, they can't just chop off the lump alone, they need to get rid of the thyroid part it's near. The thyroid is shaped like a butterfly, and essentially they took out one of its wings.

The surgeon herself told us that if she went in and found anything suspicious at all with either side of the thyroid, she'd take the whole thing out to be safe.

(My family joked with mom that she would wake up with at least half her thyroid gone.)

Last week was her surgery. She was more afraid of the surgery itself than the possibility cancer, but she handled it well and now she's healing up. As far as invasive surgeries go, thyroid removal seems to be pretty good; it took her less than a day to feel up and at 'em, and me and the rest of the family have been trying to reel her in. She says she feels way more energetic than before the surgery, which is leading us to believe that maybe the lump was messing with her hormones.

They're sending the lump and thyroid half away to do science to it and tell us, once and for all, what the hell that thing is.

My worst fear is that there is cancer inside after all, and she'll have to go back in for another bout of surgery. The surgeon seemed confident there wasn't anything wrong with the remaining half still inside her, but there's always a chance for the worst.

My grandmother is down visiting us for the first time in twenty years, and the two of them have been hanging out and running errands and gardening and just being adorable.

Mom might have cancer yet, but she certainly doesn't have that scary third one. If she had had the scary third one, then the lump on her thyroid would have already quadrupled in size in the time between appointments. So that's a relief. I keep telling myself that; even if there's something wrong, it's likely going to be easily dealt with.

All the same, I really wish those fuckin' results would come in.