Friday, July 03, 2009

Benign is the greatest french sounding word in the English Language

Kym will probably get mad at me for posting this, but whatever.

A few months ago Kym started having blackouts. She'd lose vision for a few seconds, then be ok. After seeing the doctors a few times they ordered a cat scan. They found clogged sinuses, which is most likely the cause when combined with low blood pressure. But they also found pollups on her parotid gland. They ordered an MRI on that, where they found a tumor on her thyroid. The tumor has calcification, and with the help of google, we found some wonderful studies that told us that means there is an 80% chance the tumor is cancer. On Monday she had all three lumps biopsied. The results were released to the doctor yesterday and after about 10 calls and 24 brutal hours of waiting they called back, and we found all results are benign. One of the pollups showed benign results, but there was a limited sample so they want to do it again. Which sucks, but it's a thousand million times better than the way we felt a few days ago.

The fatality rate of thyroid cancer is really low, but we had to prepare for the worst. Imagine how you'd feel losing your spouse. Imagine a doucebag like me trying to raise two manical kids alone. It hasn't been a fun few weeks. But things are looking up. We have several appointments next week. She may still need sugery, or she may still need radioactive treatment. She still needs to get the sinus issues resolved. But, it's not cancer, and I can sleep now.

9 comments:

Melissa said...

I was going to go on a semi-tirade of the perils of the internet but I'm just happy that Kym is okay. I hate cancer.

filmgoerjuan said...

Sending good thoughts Kym's way.

dizzy von damn! said...

benign is a wonderful word.

Oh great One said...

I'll keep you all in my prayers. I have hypothyroidsim and my last doctor did an ultrasound on it and found "nodules" I was supposed to go back and have them checked again to see if they were gone or had grown or whatever. BAM lost our job AND insurance. I did the the online searches and found the same info you did. Your post makes me hopeful! Thank heavens you won't be raising those kids alone!

Wow. Sorry to ramble!

Felisa said...

Benign is a wonderful word.

"Completely negative" (when it comes to cancer) will be wonderful as well.

Unknown said...

I went through the same thing for my thyroid about 5 years ago. It sucked. Got the biopsy, came back bad, had 1/2 removed, wound up being good, but I gained 50lbs and have joint problems, and cant lose weight, and I am tired all the time. And I lost half my hair too. Gained it all back, along with the weight. But I am alive so depends on how you see that.

Jootastic said...

Wow, that's a big deal. I'm very happy that she's okay!

HappyKap said...

Glad to know everything is cool. Tumors suck.

egan said...

I'm way behind on this news. I can't even begin to think about how hard this news had to be. I'm happy to hear things turned out benign.

Thinking about the single parenting would drive me insane and has crossed my mind a few times. I hope things are still in the clear these days.