Hi, I Have Thyroid Cancer

I wonder how long it's going to take for that thought to stop feeling weird.  It all seems a bit surreal at the moment.  This week has felt incredibly long.  On Monday I was waiting to hear back from my doctor about being referred for a biopsy and by Friday I had cancer. It's funny when your brain sort of stalls out and you get this stray random though, like when the doctor is telling you that you have thyroid cancer and you think, "Crap, I don't even know what the ribbon for that looks like."

I feel scared and tired.  Even if I know it's not likely to turn out badly, it's still going to be hard.  I know I will win this fight, I just wish I didn't have to get in the ring to begin with. I'm still having a hard time accepting that I even have cancer despite having seen the ultrasounds and biopsy results.  It's not like other illnesses where you're in a lot of pain or feeling very sick.  Other than feeling tired and dizzy all the time I feel basically normal, not like a person who needs surgery and radiation treatment.

This is why cancers of any type are so bad.  At school we're taught if someone has  mass and no pain, think cancer.  Cancer sneaks up on you.  It hangs out where you don't see it, and sometimes don't even feel it and then one day it jumps out and tries to kill you.  Well, not this time!  Clearly the universe has got my back since it was caught before it could do its worst.  There are times in life when you really feel like you dodged a bullet: You didn't get on that bus that day, you left five minutes late for work, you decided to take the long way home, and later you find out that something bad happened that missed you by inches.  I feel just like that.