Well, let’s see… Since November, Maryellen has not been well. She had an MS exacerbation right around Thanksgiving and hasn’t really gotten anywhere back to her “normal” since then. About a month or so ago, she went to see our family doctor regarding some neck pain, and he ordered an MRI. The scan showed a bulging disk and a herniated disk… but it also showed a “nodule” in her thyroid…

SO, the next step was a CT scan of the neck/thyroid… if it came back “hot” no problem, if it came back “cold” well, there was cause for concern… of course, it came back cold.

Next up, the ultrasound. The ultrasound was looking for blood flow I think, and whatever it was supposed to show to be good, it didn’t. SO, finally a biopsy of the nodule was ordered.

She had a fine needle biopsy 2 weeks ago (pretty amazing procedure that I got to watch) and the preliminary results said… “well, hard to say for sure what it is…” so we had to wait 2 weeks for the final report. In the mean time, an appointment with an ENT surgeon was set up.

So, Thursday of last week, Maryellen heard from our doctor that the final report said the cells from the biopsy were indicative of follicular neoplasm. Lots of Google searches and reading up tells us that, well, not much. It’s an abnormal cellular growth that may or may not be cancerous. But there’s that word… CANCER….

Maryellen’s parents both died of cancer, both her fraternal grandparents had cancer, my dad and his mom and my maternal grandfather all died of cancer. It’s got to be one of the scariest words ever.

Friday we went to see Dr. Adappa. He took a look at her and explained the surgery. She will have a thyroid lobectomy. They will go in and remove the left lobe of her thyroid. Then, while she’s still under, they will run the removed thyroid portion to the lab and take a frozen section of it to determine whether it was cancerous or not. If it IS cancerous, they will continue the surgery and remove her entire thyroid. If it’s NOT or if the frozen section is inconclusive, they will close her up and send her to recovery.

The surgery is scheduled for April 16. However, she’s at the top of the list to be moved up should there be a cancellation in Adappa’s surgery schedule.

Needless to say, it’s been a rough stretch here, and we’re wondering how many of the “MS” symptoms might really have been b/c of the thyroid issue over the past few months… and longer?? So, I apologize in advance if I’m not quick to respond to emails or if certain things get forgotten. This has been very all-consuming for me, and so I can’t imagine how it’s been for Maryellen.

It’s going to be a long month until April 16 gets here. 🙁

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