News

This crazy idea of mine to start a blog was supposed to just be fun and entertaining.  I'm sorry that right now I'm neither fun nor entertaining.  Life has other plans.    

Mom and Dad-o are at Mayo Clinic.  They left yesterday morning and met with the doctors there this morning.  Mom called me this evening and prayers are needed.  She also sent out an email to other family members and here is a copy of that email. 

Well, this has been quite the day. Curt and I are in Rochester and I met with Dr. Moore at Mayo, who after checking me over and looking over the tests, slides and CD's that I brought with me, decided that there is a very good chance that I have thyroid cancer and involvement in my lymph nodes. I definitely need to have all this taken out. He said there are a couple of other fairly rare things it could be but he's pretty certain it is cancer. I will have surgery tomorrow and then come back in about 6 weeks for a checkup and probably some kind of radiation. All depends on exactly what he finds and how much he can get out. He said he will take out all of my remaining thyroid and any lymph nodes that are affected and there seems to be a fair amount of them involved. The doctor also said that I probably won't be able to sing after surgery, and Curt said not to worry because I can't sing now anyway! There is a good chance of losing my voice and I guess at this point that would be a minor problem. That depends on how "wrapped around" the recurrent laryngeal nerve the mass is. This mess of lumps is also partially situated between the carotid artery and jugular vein, we just can't keep it simple I guess. We do not have a time scheduled for surgery yet, I need to report to check in at 9:30 in the morning, but Dr. said it would probably be up to 4 hours of surgery and 2 in recovery.  Your thoughts and prayers are so appreciated.

I guess there's not a whole lot else to say.  We are all staying positive and know that this will all turn out.  It's just going to be a bit of a journey to get there.

 

I'll say it again, it's hard for me to be this transparent.  However, I figure after all that Mom has done for me my whole life, the least I can do for her is get as many people rallying around her and for her as possible. 

Mom -- I love you.