Thyroid Trouble
In the meantime, suspecting that my thyroid was the culprit behind my intractable weight gain, I made an appointment with a locally well-known and favorably-reviewed endocrinologist. I had to wait a couple of months to finally get an appointment.
March 2003
The day of my appointment with the endocrinologist arrived. Instead of meeting with the endocrinologist herself (which would have required a six-month wait), I was instead assigned to a physician assistant (PA). This PA was all business. There were no pleasantries. I rattled off my complaints and was quickly given a slip for bloodwork and a requisition for an ultrasound of my thyroid and told to return in a couple of weeks for a follow-up appointment.
At the follow-up appointment, I was told that testing revealed the presence of a multi-nodular thyroid and that I should see a surgeon to have my thyroid removed. Say what?REMOVED???? Wasn’t that rather extreme? There was no mention of the possible detection of thyroid antibodies in the bloodwork, which would indicate the presence of an autoimmune disease. I was told that I should have a biopsy done of the thyroid to rule out something more serious. Oh, God, I knew what that meant. Would I have to face cancer yet again? I certainly wasn’t going to rush into surgery to have my thyroid yanked out for no good reason! I fought the idea of a biopsy for two months——it was too invasive and, frankly, I just didn’t want to deal with the possibility of thyroid cancer. Hadn’t one round of cancer been enough? But after many mental gymnastics and the torture of not knowing what was really going on with my thyroid, I consented to have the biopsy done.
May 2003
I searched for something online to quell my growing fears over the upcoming biopsy. I have no idea how, but I came across the teachings of Abraham-Hicks. Abraham is a so-called group of cosmic entities channeled through Esther Hicks and delivers guidance and inspiration regarding the Law of Attraction. In a nutshell, what I derived from Abraham’s teaching was simple but profound: “Feel good = attracting goodness and wellbeing into your life”. While this no doubt sounds like a lot of simplistic New Age woo woo to many, this was exactly what I needed at this point in my life. On top of this, I was excited to learn that Abraham-Hicks was going to be appearing in town several days before my biopsy. I quickly signed up for the event and eagerly anticipated Abraham’s appearance. I was not disappointed. I was excited to be one of several from the audience selected to come forward and ask Abraham a question. When my turn came to present my question, I, of course, expressed my anxiety over the upcoming biopsy. I requested advice on how I should handle it, as well as how I should view the biopsy itself along with the future results. The answer Abraham gave me was profoundly and deeply reassuring! A very deep sense of peace came over me and I knew everything would go well. In fact, I purchased some of Abraham’s CD’s and played them in the car on the way to the biopsy appointment. Fairy-tale thinking? Perhaps.
The day of the biopsy arrived and I was pretty calm as I waited for my turn to be called in the clinic. I was escorted into the treatment room and was prepped for the procedure. I was instructed to change into a hospital gown. My neck was washed and then bathed in Betadine to make sure that the area to be accessed was free from bacteria. An older female doctor of Asian descent entered the room to perform the biospy. This was done as what is known as an FNA—a fine needle aspiration. A very slender needle is inserted into a nodule to extract a minute amount of tissue for analysis. This was done a number of times in various areas of my thyroid to gain as comprehensive a picture of what was going on in the nodules as possible. The doctor was very quiet, calm and meticulous as she carried out her work. Fortunately, because the needles were so slender and I’m sure due to the doctor’s skills, the procedure was virtually painless. At the completion of the biopsy, the doctor smiled and said she thought everything was okay because the needles went in very easily; there was no resistance when she tried to insert them. But she cautioned that she wouldn’t know for sure until the tissue samples were analyzed. I asked how long it would take to get the results and she replied that it would be about a week to ten days before the results were sent to my endocrinologist.
June 2003
I waited ten days and still had not received the results of my thyroid biopsy. I called the endocrinologist’s office and was told that they had not received them yet. I was scheduled for an appointment there in another week and figured that surely they would have the results by then. I dreaded this appointment because not only was I nervous about the outcome of the biopsy but I really didn’t want to meet with the PA that I had dealt with previously. She was cold and arrogant, with absolutely no beside manner whatsoever. I just didn’t like her! Fortunately, I was scheduled to meet with someone else; another PA who was actually kind and relatable. I immediately asked her for the results of my biopsy. She leafed through my file and seemed puzzled because there were no biopsy results. She went through it again and still couldn’t find the them. She excused herself and went to the front desk to track down the elusive results. She returned to inform me that the front desk was tracking them down with the clinic where the biopsy was performed. In the meantime, she wanted to prescribe Synthroid for my underperforming thyroid gland. I knew from online research that Synthroid does not contain the full complement of thyroid hormones, leaving many patients still experiencing hypothyroid symptoms despite treatment with Synthroid. I asked for the natural thyroid replacement, Armour thyroid medication, as I knew it contained all of the necessary thyroid hormones because it’s derived from pigs’ thyroid glands. She balked at this, saying that Armour is an old-fashioned medication that really isn’t used anymore. I then proceeded to lie and said that I was allergic to synthetic thyroid medications after trying many of them and that Armour was the only one that worked for me. After hearing this, she consented to writing a script for Armour thyroid medication. I don’t endorse lying, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
After still more time passed without the biopsy results, I informed the PA as gently and politely as I could that I was not leaving the office until I knew the results of the biopsy. I was about to leave on my cross-country trip the following week and I wasn’t about to go on the trip not know whether or not I had thyroid cancer! I’d never have been able to enjoy the trip with that hanging over my head! In short order they miraculously found the results: the nodules were BENIGN!!! Thank you, God!!! I put the entire matter completely out of my mind and went on to have a magnificent road-trip to the West Coast with my daughter who was my companion, best friend and navigator. It truly was the trip of a lifetime and I made many wonderful memories with my daughter that are forever captured in my mind and in priceless photographs. But that wasn’t to be the last of my thyroid troubles. Far from it.