Hello World, I haven't been writing for a while, but too much has happened, and Wife thinks I should get back to it, so after some time thinking about it, I will try to write on a regular basis, but not every day. So much has happened since I stopped writing, the biggest event of course being my father passed away in late August, right before my younger boy, working on new nickname, was to start college. I will address my dad, I loved him and miss him, but not today. Same as Mijo, starting college, playing football, it has been so very special and great, but again, I will get to that another day. The biggest thing going on right now is I found out less than a month ago I have thyroid cancer. This is a big deal, it came out of nowhere, people in my family have not been fighting with cancer that I have heard about. Still, life is what it is, we will deal with it and hopefully I can come out the other end on the winning side, it is still early in my fight.
About a month ago, I was sitting with Wife watching a movie and I kept touching my neck and it just felt thick and fuller than normal. Knowing I have some glands there, I thought maybe I'm fixing to get sick, and they are reacting to it, but I told Wife, and she insisted I go to the doctor. I haven't had a doctor I see, or more honestly, I hadn't seen a doctor in probably five or more years. The last time I went to CVS (Minute Clinic) for strep throat I think, the lady there was a Physician Assistant there and upon reading my heart rate she determined I was fixing to have a heart attack; she swore I wouldn't make it past the weekend and was even uncomfortable letting me drive on my own to the hospital a couple miles away. I ended up going on my own, refusing to call an ambulance I was not going to pay for and upon arriving at the hospital I was escorted quickly to a waiting bed. I had already called my Wife and mom; everyone was in a panic crying only to find out the PA overreacted. The doctor explained after doing an EKG on me that I have a heart arrythmia, it kind of skips a beat once in a while, so to her much more basic tool, the finger monitor, it seemed worse than it was. I felt it was just going to be more of this kind of stuff going to the doctor, so I put going off for regular stuff because I don't need all that drama every time, unless I feel really sick. My worst thought is that someday I'll feel really dizzy or something and realize my fat ass finally got diabetes, that was my worst-case scenario, other than a heart attack.
Here I am now, I found out I have a tumor over 8cm long in my thyroid area in the front of my neck and because it is so large, the two surgeons I saw here in Austin suggested I go see more expert people, so now my adventure is going to be set in MD Anderson in Houston. I have mixed feelings over this, believe me, I have already sat and cried in the car, in the toilet, in the shower, in the bed, at the kitchen table, driving, even at work, as I was slowly realizing how much this is going to suck. Luckily, I guess, I have been given short-term disability, so I get to stay home with my thoughts alone all day. I say mixed feelings because as scared as I am, I also realize I have been given a gift by having the ability to go to the best place in the world for cancer treatment and I am lucky to live within a 3-hour drive.
I wanted to go to work last week, just to have something to do, make the day have some value, and help my section at work keep up, we were already shorthanded, one of our chemists retired last quarter, and with me gone, we are working with only two people now, but I can't be worried about that now. I ended up having an appointment on Friday for a round of tests, they wanted to repeat all the tests I did to get me there. At 6:15am I showed up for blood draw to see what is going on my blood, then a CT scan at 6:30am, followed by an ultrasound and biopsy at 12:45pm. Getting up early in the morning and going to a new place sucked, we got behind on time, parking was a nightmare at that hour, I guess it is before night shift leaves and day shift is showing up. The one parking spot on the topmost floor of the parking garage had me going back and forth like 5 times to get in meanwhile a parade of ten cars was lined up behind me watching and waiting. Once we got to the blood place, things fell into a nicer rhythm, nobody seemed upset about being a little late.
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