I was at the gym, walking on the treadmill, preparing for my new job to begin that Wednesday. I get a panicked phone call from a medical assistant at Dr. P’s office, “Have you ever followed up on your thyroid”? I at once get off the machine and step outside. I say “No, why would I, I called you over a year ago and asked for results, and the office said, they aren’t in yet, we will reach out if there are any problems”. Any doctor’s mantra is, “No bubbles, no troubles”. Made sense. And of course, thanks to Web MD, we are all doctors now, nodules on thyroids are “normal”.
Back in the Fall of 2022, I was going to the OBGYN for my yearly exam, and she said, you have nodules on your neck, we need to get that checked. I call Dr. P, my general practitioner, and have her order an ultrasound. I go in a week or so later and have the procedure. Then Dr. P’s office calls and states, (and by Dr. P’s office, I am of course referring to a MA, long gone are the days of a Dr. taking a personal interest in his/her patients and their wellbeing. We are just files on their desks now, and sometimes forgotten ones.) Your ultrasound came back inconclusive, they would like you to come in for a biopsy. I then go in for the extremely uncomfortable biopsy. Weeks pass, and I hear nothing back. The Holidays roll by. Finally, I called Dr P’s office and asked. They assured me, “We will call you with any issues”. As I stated, “No bubbles, no troubles”. Web MD assures me thyroid nodules can be normal; we are all doctors now thanks to the internet.
February 2024, a panicked phone call to Dr P’s office. Well, you need to see a specialist, your results were abnormal. I’m pacing outside the gym, confused and scared. I call my husband. Then my phone rings again, this time, it’s not the MA, it is Dr. P. She hasn’t called me personally in years. She is nervous. She left a message that she could get me into a local otolaryngologist for a follow-up. I cease communication with the office, I find my path forward. They have essentially forgotten me, she had silenced me.
I called a surgeon on my own and had my ultrasound and biopsy sent to the new office. Then the wait game, that we all go through, for that appointment that never seems to come. March 13, 2024, Dr. B walked into the room, looked at me, and said, that needs to come out. Never touches my neck, or orders a new ultrasound or blood work, he just looks at the protruding mass on the left side of my neck. I have never been a thin girl; I just assumed the thick neck came with the game. Again, I had Dr. P check everything, but nobody called. It was all good.
I go into surgery on April 16th, 2024. A surgery predicted to take 1.5 hours goes closer to 4. It was a monster he says, very bloody. But hey, it is done, it is over. Phew. Weeks go by and pathology isn’t back yet, it is 2024, what is the delay? We put average citizens on the moon, and countries can place invisible domes over their cities to protect them from war, but we can’t track my pathology. I call Dr B’s office, I state that I am off on medical, let’s just go ahead and book removing my left thyroid lobe, let’s get it on the books. Web MD has assured me, again, a “Dr. in training”, that thyroid cancer is very treatable if the entire thyroid is removed. Surgery is scheduled for 5/10/24. The week prior, not with a phone call or email, but by logging in on my own to mychart, discovered that it is in fact, Papillary Carcinoma. Phew, surgery is already on the schedule. I was my advocate.
Then you wonder, was it cancer then? I mean it was according to the biopsy, a follicular lesion at the time. Yes, the result is the same, a thyroid is removed, but was it cancer then? We will never know will we, because Dr. P did in fact, silence me? Could I have just had my thyroid removed and then a lifetime of meds? Not months on end wondering if cancer cells had spread. Could just one lobe have been removed, and meds avoided? The mass was quite a bit larger than that first biopsy. Would I have had to go through the radioiodine? Would I spend the next five years with scans making sure cancer hasn’t spread if she had in fact, just called me, when it was merely a lesion? Questions, so many questions she silenced by her negligence. Delay, Deny. Defend.
My husband and I walk into the hospital on May 10th. Just three weeks later, we are back in there, hoping to put this cancer journey behind us. I do not give empathy or look for it. This was our journey. I wasn’t looking to share this path with many. It was so many others’ stories, and often their story was so much scarier, it was not my story. After months of anxiety and waiting, it was time to put it behind us.
I wake up getting wheeled into recovery, the Surgeon is standing there, and a few RNs I know personally, look emotionally exhausted and a bit terrified, shaking their heads no. The surgery was called off. There is no wound across my neck, however, the inside of my throat is raw, and my shoulders are tender with bruises. I am told that I stopped breathing 3xs in the OR. They had 15 people in the OR that day, including 3 anesthesiologists, trying to keep me breathing. After Dr. B had betadine across my neck and on the brink of a trach, he called the surgery. I am admitted for high CO2 levels, and angry, just angry that this process continues. When I was being wheeled to my room, and looked at my husband leaning in the doorway, I knew I needed to be grateful, it was in fact, a close and scary situation.
Perhaps the worst is the wait, the wait for the next surgery, the wait for the surgeons’ schedule to be cleared. The wait, the wondering, the googling, the self-diagnosing. I’m wondering, wondering if I would stop breathing this next surgery, permanently.
It was decided that the proximity of my last surgery as well as my vocal cords being a bit too forward, would make me, clearly, a difficult intubation. My next surgery would be an awake nasal intubation. I had to wait of course for my body to heal and a very particular schedule to open. Again, waiting. And why did I feel so bad? I allegedly still had the left lobe of my thyroid. I was forcing myself to get steps in, my words were coming out slower, my eyelids so very heavy. Was my time off on disability causing more harm than good? But how could I possibly go back to work when functioning as a human was a struggle?
I would then spend the next few weeks resting, wondering, would I wake up from this one? Would I stop breathing again? What would Adam do if I didn’t wake up? I paid all the bills; I took care of all the kids’ paperwork. This wasn’t just about me; it was about the family. My world rises and sets with them. I was terrified to go under the knife again, but everyone knows that thyroid cancer is very curable when completely removed. What choice did I have? I would go in yet again and I would do it with dignity and grace.
June 14, 2024, I walk in with Adam, and we check-in. The RN taking my vitals and stats said “I was in the OR when you stopped breathing weeks ago. It was frightening for all of us. When you woke up in post-op, you asked for a fountain Diet Coke from McDonald’s.” Yes, that sounds about right. As nervous as I was, the day was here, and I was ready for it to be over. They wheeled me to post-op to begin the awake nasal intubation, where there was a tighter staff, and more could be there if needed. As Adam nervously walked away, I wondered to myself if I would ever see him again. They had everything possible laid out in the OR if there was an issue or any scenario. They were prepared. Multiple anesthesiologists were there. It was time. I remember holding a nurse’s hand as they pushed the tube into my nose. This was it.
I woke up in post-op, my neck was tender and there was a large incision and a drain in my chest. It was over, I did it. Months of waiting are over. This nightmare has been unfolding since that phone call in the gym at the end of February. I eat the ice chips and am wheeled to my room. My husband comes in shortly after, He said,” I mean, have you talked to anyone?” I said, “No why, I just woke up and they wheeled me here once I was stable.” He said, “They cut you open, and there was NO THYROID. Dr. B looked all over for it. Nothing. That mass was so large in April and entangled that he took your entire thyroid out and had no idea.” The struggle to function, the absolute and complete fatigue for months on end, I had been running with no thyroid and no thyroid medication for months now.
One would wonder how you could even make this nightmare up. Every turn was another obstacle. Ultimately, did any of this even have to happen had Dr. P picked up my file? Had she continued to practice the hypocritical oath she had sworn by? Would the follicular lesion found in 2022 turn into cancer? Would I have only needed one lobe removed then and not looked forward to a lifetime of meds? Would Dr. B have taken out a much smaller nodule mass in 2022 and not led to me going months without meds and a thyroid? Would I not spend the next 10-plus years wondering and worrying with every ache or pain, did a cancer cell get away?
Once the nightmare was over, I thought to investigate liability. Was my trauma not the result, ultimately of Dr. P’s negligence? Was my life less valuable because I did wake up on May 10th? And I did start breathing. Is this nightmare not of value to anyone because I did survive? You can log into my hospital portal, see in live time, and read Dr. P and pathology at the hospital, throwing blame around in February of 2024, the sheer fear of not knowing if their negligence had cost me my life. Noting my calls earlier in the PREVIOUS year, being, in fact, my advocate.
We live in a world of almost socialized medicine. Where everything is a wait, often the worst part of the process, the wondering, the googling. How there is no blame here? That Dr. P and the Hospital are free to continue to go on and “silence” us all. That if we fight through and prevail, our trauma is worth nothing. But, if a young mother glances at a screaming toddler and inadvertently causes an accident, she could be sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I want to share my story and for everyone who is going through their own Hell, I hear you. For the uneducated and underserved, I hear you. I am grateful for what I went through, what I endured, and the strength it gave me.
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