Blessings

It was the beginning of January, and I was sitting at work when I got the worst pains EVER in my stomach. When you're pregnant, you assume everything you feel in your tummy has to do with your baby. So, of course, I went into panic mode. Jared came to get me, and we rushed off to my OB. Long story short ... lots of bloodwork, an ultrasound and an hour on the contraction monitor revealed that there was nothing wrong with Cooper. And an hour later, we realized I had a stomach virus. Nice. And, although it was the worst stomach virus I've ever had, at least there wasn't anything wrong with Cooper. And, five days later, I was better.

In the meantime, we learn that my thyroid levels were all out of whack. I had to see an endocrinologist, and he told me that I had a nodule on my thyroid which is why my blood work was all jacked up. As a cancer survivor when someone tells you that you have a nodule anywhere, you automatically "go there." You start to worry. You just can't help it. The worst part was that we couldn't do the biopsy until I was 2 months post pardum. So, we had to go through 4 months of not knowing. We chose not to tell anyone except my sister. We wanted the focus to be on Cooper and not on worrying about me.

And, in the meantime, Jared's dad got sick. Wow. That was hard. We worried about him, and in the back of our minds we wondered if we'd be going through the same thing in a couple of months. But kept calm and stayed positive and stayed quiet about our situation. It was too much for the rest of the family to handle. No need to worry everyone if there wasn't anything to worry about.

Fast forward a little ... Cooper just turned 7 weeks old, so it was time to schedule my biopsy. Jared and I headed over to the doctor's office, and he did the biopsy right then and there. He explained to us that the majority of these nodules are benign and never cause problems. I think he quoted me 95%. Two days later, I got the call. Benign. Hallelujah. But then, that same day, I heard from a friend whose mom was at the hospital having her thyroid removed because although it was benign, it was getting bigger and causing problems. Except it wasn't benign at all. When they got in there to take it out, they found cancer. And a lot of it. Hello God! Thank you for the message. I called the doctor back immediately and told them to schedule my thyroidectomy. They tried to talk me out of it, but I said please just schedule it. It was labeled elective surgery.

This past Friday, I had my elective thyroidectomy (lol) and a rather large nodule was removed along with the left side of my thyroid. On Wednesday, I found out that I too was diagnosed with thyroid cancer despite what the biopsy said. Follicular Thyroid Carcinoma to be exact.

How can anyone say they don't believe in God? I've seen his hand in my life on more than one occasion. I went to the doctor with a stomach virus. Who knew that would save my life? I thought, at the time, I was dying! ha! And, if I had listened to the doctor and ignored the message God sent through my friend, the tumor would still be in there, and we'd never know. But, because of all of this, we caught the cancer really early. I have a 98% chance of survival. I'll take those odds any day.

I go in next Thursday to have the rest of my thyroid removed. The next 4 weeks will be rough. I won't be taking any thyroid meds, so I won't have any energy, I'll be grumpy and cold. My doctor explained it like this, "you're going to be the most miserable you've ever been in your life." Great! After that, I have to take a very high dose of radioactive iodine therapy, and I'll be in isolation for two weeks. No Cooper. No Jared. That's going to be the longest two weeks ever. It's going to be the hardest two weeks ever. After that, we'll do a scan to make sure the cancer is gone. Then, I'm finished. I'm healed. Halelujah.

Please pray. It's been a rough year so far. But, it's also been a great year. After all, God has blessed me with a beautiful, healthy baby boy. And, He found a way to save my life from that mean ole cancer. Life can always be worse. I'm thankful God is always with me. My favorite poem is "Footsteps" - It says this, "When you saw only one set of footsteps, it was then that I carried you." Sometimes I feel like I'm always being carried. God is good. All the time.