Quick summation of our daughter’s recent diagnosis……So far……..

A Cautionary Tale……

I wrote this summation about our recent experience with our fourth child’s diagnosis of thyroid cancer. I tried to answer each of the e-mails personally, but failed. When I would receive more e-mail back, asking more questions, I realized it would be better to try to type up something more descriptive and precise to help others understand our situation better. I write this to quell the fears of the mothers who can’t understand how such a healthy teenager could have been walking around, with what seemed like no symptoms, while cancer was growing in her thyroid. But, most of all, I write it to help myself organize the thoughts that need put into their proper perspective. If I make this process understandable……..maybe it will be helpful to someone else…………I hope so!

Last December while enjoying coffee at a Starbucks with my daughters I had no idea our lives were about change. In the dark lighting of the coffee shop I couldn’t help but notice the way the light was shining on Brittany’s neck as she turned to look out into the store. To my shock and dismay there was, what seemed to me at the time, a large growth completely spotlighted by one of the ceiling lights. We got on with our night committed to calling the doctor in the morning. Once we got in to see a doctor we were asked a lot of questions, and she had Brittany put her head all the way back and told me she couldn’t see anything. I described once again what I knew I had seen………she told me there was nothing there. I decided not to argue and just reiterated that I only wanted an ultrasound. She did the exam and said she could find nothing. I silently determined I would need another doctor and decided to stop my “ultrasound” mantra and move on. Finally, she said maybe there is something there and she would order the ultrasound, then she countered with a, “But if I were a betting man I would bet it will be completely normal.” Good thing she isn’t a gambler because the ultrasound technician found it immediately. There was a calcified growth on Brittany’s thyroid and we needed to see an ENT.

After the New Year we went to the ENT. He did a biopsy and told us to come back in a week for the lab report. I went back to the office for the results and found myself completely relieved when the doctor said, “Good news! There are no malignancies!” He told us to come back in six months, which we did, and we were told to come back in a year. People who think what you don’t know can’t hurt you…….will clearly find that that cliche is wrong in this case. I had such a terrible feeling about this doctor, but I knew we had a biopsy done and what more could a second opinion prove? I went home and sent out an e-mail asking for the name of a good ENT because I didn’t want to deal with anymore randomly selected doctors.  

At our first visit we were asked a lot of questions, but everything seemed to be common procedure until I was told we needed another biopsy, because the first one had lab notes on it I, obviously, didn’t know about. The lab notes noted that the biopsy the first ENT took had arrived at the lab too dry to get a good culture, and in order to make a diagnosis they needed to do another biopsy. That weekend was extremely hot and our air conditioner broke, so I went to sleep outside in the car (and spent most of the night thinking an axe murderer was on the loose! <G> ).  I was awoke by my daughter telling me I had a phone call. I was discombobulated, and had no idea that no matter how nice the doctor was, I had just received news that would send my mind into a type of altered state I had not experienced in a very long time. The lab could not rule out cancer and I needed to come in for a consultation. Deja Vu! Our son was diagnosed with a brain tumor (an inoperable astrocytoma) at age seven years old and sent home to die after a brain operation showed that removal of the tumor would have caused more damage than just leaving it alone (that’s a story for another day, but the short version is our son was miraculously healed and experienced a documented miracle. The video and neurologist from Cleveland Clinic are on youtube.com under Alex Robertson).

Surgery was scheduled and even though we were warned that Brittany had a “significant” chance of having cancer, we hoped and prayed it just wasn’t so. The day of surgery came and we received the news that the whole thyroid needed to be removed because cancer was found in the thyroid. Then when the surgery was completed I stood there on the phone listening to the doctor tell me the details while looking at the faces of my anxious family. He said the cancer had spread to a lymph node, etc. and that he had difficulty with the vocal cords, but it seemed that her voice was fine. I shared the news with my family and then we silently went back to sit in the waiting area……….wishing for numbness that didn’t come. What did come were thoughts that we were only days away from Brittany’s seventeenth birthday and my thoughts went back to the day she was born. Thinking back to the remarks people made about the craziness of entering into a pregnancy when my older three were just at the age I would have my freedom. And all I could think about at that very moment was how fortunate I was that God in His wisdom overrode my own will and sent me Brittany. My heart leapt with joy at the thought of her birth and all the happiness she has brought to our family, and just how gloriously delighted I was to be her mom. I was completely filled with gratitude to God for sending her to me.

We went to the recovery room and the nurse was great! She allowed all of us in and talked to us about the joys of a large family. Her timing couldn’t have been better. A doctor came up and broke our tired silence by asking Brittany to say her name. Suddenly, the mundane becomes the most fascinating gesture as I started to quietly clap when I heard Brittany’s voice for the first time.

Brittany went home two days later, then a few days after that we went to the ENT for the stitches removal and pathology report. I believe that was the hardest day of all, although the doctor had prepared us I found the pathway from my head to my heart completely stalled as my emotions took control. The doctor made a copy of the lab report and handed it to me then sat in a chair, and with pen in hand,  went over the pathology results. By the time he made it to “Stage 3″ I could no longer look him in the eyes anymore. I sat in a frozen state looking at the report with thoughts swirling around my head so fast and furiously my brain couldn’t grab one, or the words the thoughts contained. For moments my head reeled at such a pace communication was gridlocked from my inability to speak lest I fall to pieces. I remember the doctor’s words. and I remember my husband and I thanking him, and I remember what he said, but fear had replaced logic. I became so paralyzed by fear for a moment I had to close my eyes to try to force my brain to have a cognitive thought. When the overload of adrenaline finally tamed down I remember asking a few questions, and the doctor trying to implement a calmness that the future for Brittany was good.

Maybe as CS Lewis says fear is like grief? Was I grieving the loss of the hope I had clung to that we could avoid what we were facing at that moment? I am not really sure why I reacted this way, although I believe it’s typical………..maybe even expected? What I do know is it was unnecessary and reactionary, and I serve a God who is much bigger than any situation or circumstance. Who loves Brittany much more than I possibly can, and if I believe He is Sovereign (and I do) then I have to believe He allowed this situation, and it can bring glory to God.

I still struggle with how I feel about the original ENT’s error. If he had just read those lab notes we would not have lost eight months of time………..and this is where the “Cautionary Tale” comes in. Get a copy of your lab report, and get a second opinion (even when the first doctor gives you news you want to hear). My anger does me no good because, ultimately, you can’t change the past………..you can only change the future and your own feelings. And as scripture shares, and U2 sings, it’s still a “Beautiful Day!” and one can still experience joy in all circumstances (not always happiness because that’s a fleeting feeling). I know that our feelings will come and go, but God’s love is a constant presence. And as my favorite author, CS Lewis shares:

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world”

[1 a.m. tiredness.........will type more after meeting the endo for our treatment plan]