Discovering.

Having Hazel was no easy task, it was an extremely difficult pregnancy, followed by a hard birth. I ended up having a cesarian section on July 27, 2010. It was all worth it though! Hazel was colic, and had MSPI, so it was hard for the first couple of months. I figured I was just really tired from having to get up every 2 hours, and having problems with trying to nurse her. I thought it would pass as soon as she started sleeping through the night. I lost all of my baby weight in the first two weeks, and continued to lose weight - I only gained a total of 9 lbs during the whole pregnancy. I started at 140 lbs (pre pregnancy) and ended up at 110 lbs by September.

Hazel, my mom, and my grandma all made a trip to Arizona in November of 2010 to see my great-grandma. Hazel is the fifth generation, so we wanted to make a trip out there for her to meet her great-great grandma. It was a great trip. We stayed in the mountains, it was so serene and relaxing. I had people to watch Hazel - grandma, great-grandma, and great-great auntie, so it was nice to have a little 'break' without having to leave her behind.

I had been sick for about a week before we left for the trip, I thought it was just from exhaustion, maybe just a cold. After we arrived in Arizona, I started having some weird symptoms. I thought I was just suffering from altitude sickness, I was having a hard time breathing, and my heart was skipping beats, and racing. I was extremely fatigued. Everyone said I was as white as a ghost. My great-aunt is a nurse, and she said that it sounded like I had a heart problem - she used a big word, but I can't remember what it was ;) I decided to go to the doctor when I got back home just to make sure I was ok.

The doctor ended up ordering me to wear a heart monitor and have blood drawn. The heart monitor was stupid to me, but I wore it anyway. Two days after I had the monitor stuck to me, they found that I had hyperthyroidism, which is where the thyroid is overactive. The doctor recommended me to an endocrinologist. Luckily, I found a very understanding one not too far from where I work, so it has been easy to slip in and out to get tests done.

Dr. W (endocrinologist, I'd rather not use her name) ordered for me to have a radioactive iodine uptake test. I had to stop nursing for a week and couldn't be around Hazel for a few days. That was the hardest part for me! They soon found that I had a nodule on my right side of my thyroid. This led to having a biopsy of the nodule. They also found that the hyperthyroidism was actually postpartum hyperthyroidism, which is actually very common after pregnancies...and that is why I probably would have never found the nodule if I didn't have Hazel.

**For most, the biopsy seems scary...but it really wasn't bad at all. They numbed my neck with lidocaine, and waited for it to numb up. They inserted a needle with the help of an ultrasound. I didn't feel a thing. It really just felt like some pressure, like a finger poking at my throat. I did end up with some bruising just because I coughed on accident and the needle moved. When they say don't breathe, it doesn't mean that something bad is going to happen when they insert the needle, it just makes it easier to get the sample. That was scary for me, just because, again, all the posts had negative remarks about having the biopsy. Honestly, if you can pinch yourself and handle that, you can handle the biopsy. They insert the needle, and move it up and down fast to collect sample tissue in the needle. They have to do about 4 samples, just to make sure they can get a good sample to the lab.**

After the test results came back it was discovered that I did, in fact, have papillary thyroid cancer. I knew that this was going to happen sometime in my life, beings it is the number one type of cancer caused by radiation exposure. I just wasn't expecting it to happen so soon. I tried radiation to get rid of the nodule, but that soon proved to not be effective. After talking with Dr. W, I decided it was probably just best to remove the whole thyroid, so that it didn't spread and cause further problems. Dr. W warned me that I would feel tired, and gain weight after the surgery, but she didn't give me a lot of information on it.

As anyone would do, I did a lot of research. All I found was that people had a really hard time regulating on their medications, that they a lot of weight, had a lot of panic attacks and emotional problems, and regretted having their thyroid removed. Naturally, this scared me. How was I supposed to raise a child and feel like crap all the time? How was I going to emotionally cope with all of this change. Having your thyroid removed was supposed to be a big shock to your body.

I went into the surgical room still upset, not clear about if I had made the right choice. But I really had to think of Hazel, I wanted to be healthy for her, so she could live a great life without having to worry about her mama. I had surgery to remove my thyroid on March 29th. I came out of surgery, feeling like I had just woke up from a coma of years. I had no energy, and they had so much morphine in me. I think the day of and the day after surgery were the worst...but I'm going to blame most of that on the drugs they gave me. I was in a daze most of the first day. I don't remember too much. I did have issues going to the bathroom because my bladder would just 'lock' up and nothing would come out. Luckily, I didn't have to have a catheter, but it was still uncomfortable. The second day, I was just extremely tired, and my throat hurt really bad, similar to strep throat. I was really emotional about the scar I was going to have, just because I have so many as it is. They did a really nice job on it though, it is right where my collar bones meet, and is pretty thin. I think it will heal nicely, and hopefully not be so noticeable with time.