More News! Thyroid Biopsy

As I mentioned in a recent post, Shermance received news about "abnormalities" in her thyroid.  The oncologist didn't seem alarmed, so he was fine with waiting until November 1st to have it checked out by an Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) Specialist.  Fortunately, Shermance also had an appointment already scheduled with her surgeon today as a routine follow-up.  The surgeon, Dr. Bombach, was not so blase about the bilateral abnormalities.

First he measured them with a sonogram to determine the size.  If they are above 1 mm in that area they want to take a deeper look.  Shermance's twin tumors in her throat were 7 mm and 12 mm respectively.  As such, he wanted to take a deeper look at them - especially since her mom had cancer in that same area. To biopsy the abnormalities he had to extract tissue from the tumors with a VERY big needle.  Shermance didn't dare move.  She was very brave and stayed perfectly still. 

So far, he can tell that they are vascular tumors, so they had their own blood supply, but we don't know any more.  We don't know if they are cancerous, if there is spread through the blood stream, or really anything more.  At this point it is more news - not good news mind you, but we don't know that it is bad news either.  Of course we are praying for the absolute best.

The news did not help Shermance's emotional state.  She didn't sleep past 3:00 am last night so she was just exhausted this evening already.  The news sapped her energy even more.  On the bright side, our cleaning lady came today and some very kind friends brought over dinner tonight so after Shermance took a soothing bath, we ate dinner as a family  We enjoyed talking about each of our days, and trying to live our normal routine.  It's hard when cancer has invaded our family, but we try to keep our lives as "normal" as possible.  We still smile a lot, and laugh a whole lot.  Our spirits are high but sometimes, like tonight, they needed a boost.