Cancer...why not me?

I was diagnosed this morning with papillary thyroid cancer.

I don't like to be alarmist-from what I'm told it's very curable, but I don't like to be secretive either.

Quick Background
Right before Mother's Day I felt a lump in the back of my neck. It was sort of cyst-like and after a few days of it not going away, I got a bit concerned. A friend of ours who is a nephrologist was at our Mother's Day dinner. He felt it and advised me to get it checked out.

The doctor felt it and said that it was probably just a swollen lymph gland and there was nothing to worry about, but just to be on the safe side, "do you want me to examine your thyroid?"

"Sure," I responded, not even sure where the thyroid was located and certainly having no idea what the thyroid does.

She felt it and said, "the right side of your thyroid feels a bit larger than the left. I'm recommending an ultrasound."

About a week later, I had the ultrasound and they found a "complex nodule" (or at least I think that is what it is called) and recommended a biopsy. 20% of the nodes are cancerous, I was told. My initial reaction was “Why me?” but that quickly changed to “Why not me?” I figure if there are 10,000 cases diagnosed each year in the US, who’s to say that I wouldn’t be one of them? That helped me begin the process of assimilating and synthesizing the information.

A few years ago, I read a book by the Dalai Lama called “The Art of Happiness” where he suggests that you should prepare yourself for difficult situations by envisioning what you will do when you face them.

This morning, I went in for a fine needle aspiration biopsy. The doctor was very nice and she pulled out the specimen from my neck. She wanted to validate that enough of a sample was taken, so she put it on the slide and looked under the microscope. I asked to look as well.

Of course, I had no idea what I was looking at, but had a good time anyway peering through the lenses.

She turns to me and says, "do you want me to give you the diagnosis now or wait until I make the final report on Thursday to your doctor?"

"What kind of ridiculous question is that?" I asked myself. "Uh, I think I'll go with right now."

"You have papillary cancer," which caused a shiver to go down my spine, of course, “but it’s highly treatable.”

For the past month, I was preparing for those words (in between early morning wake-ups with Erez and all of the other stuff of life) and so I am just going to take it one step at a time. Not worrying about all of the “what if’s” just dealing with the facts that are in front of me and taking the best course of action at each moment.

Just wanted to share the status.