I was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer in December 2017, at 28 years old. About a month prior, I had gone to a well-woman checkup after skipping it for a few years (which of course was not the best choice). My OB/GYN felt my neck and said "Huh, your thyroid is pretty big." An ultrasound, referral, and biopsy later: boom, cancer. Total thyroidectomy in Jan 2018, radioactive iodine that February, declared NED in March. It was a very stressful whirlwind. It also took several more months to get my levothyroxine dose correct, and it was a constant battle to keep my calcium levels up. Needless to say, 2018 was definitely an exhausting year, especially because I also worked full-time and parented a then-toddler during all of it.
But I was just told today that I'm still cancer-free after my annual checkup, and my TSH and calcium levels are both in fantastic shape. Take that, thyroid. I don't miss your traitorous ass at all!
Subreddit
Post Details
- Posted
- 3 years ago
- Reddit URL
- View post on reddit.com
- External URL
- reddit.com/r/thyroidcanc...
It was pretty wild, especially because it was obvious later on that I had walked around with that cancer for YEARS without any idea anything was wrong. My thyroid was enormous on both sides and had one large cancerous nodule on the left side, with several smaller cancerous ones scattered throughout. But surprisingly, it didn't affect my lymph nodes much, and my RAI dose to wipe out the little bit of remaining cancer was fairly small in comparison to others.
Latest TG result came in this morning as "undetectable."
Sorry, just now saw the rest of your follow-up questions! TG was 2.7 before RAI and now undetectable. My RAI dose was 52 mci.
My doc said my cancer was stage 3 because of the (minor) lymph node involvement, but I also know that age can be a factor in papillary thyroid cancer staging and that other docs may say it was Stage 1 because of my age at the time.