Life - a surprise and a gift

She was all of 35 yrs when she succumbed to the King of Maladies – Cancer. Diagnosed in the final stages – brain tumour is not something that is easily identifiable especially in today’s day and age of a high stress, fast paced lifestyle all of us lead! Headaches, slurring, difficulty in finding words – these are common enough problems that many of us face during different periods of stress.

I was with her during the final stages and while she slipped into a coma, the plight of her parents’ caused me grief to no end.

As a fund raiser for Indian Cancer Society (ICS) during the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon, I have been exposed to the plight of cancer patients at ICS and Tata Memorial Hospital. It is heart wrenching to see people without resources - financially & emotionally struggling to fight the dreaded disease.

As if to give me a perspective (a glimpse into that world), I was suddenly diagnosed with thyroid cancer – out of the blue.

I had an early diagnosis and an extremely good prognosis. It is joked around in medical circles that if you have to get Cancer, then this is the best form to have! Am I lucky or what?

Jokes apart, this entire diagnosis happened within a span of 4 days and how?

I happened to notice a very discreet swelling (hardly noticeable even on close observation) at the base of my neck. 2 Days later when I told my husband, he suggested I show it to our family physician the day I came back to Mumbai. I was out on official work.

For some reason, instead of the usual procrastination, I went immediately and my doctor asked me to get a sonography of the neck done suggesting this could be something to do with the Thyroid gland.

I knew enough to understand the radiologist’s commentary on the suspicions they had about the thyroid nodule that they had observed.

I shared my observations with my husband and together we went to consult our doctor with the report. The report confirmed the presence of nodules and I was recommended to get a FNAC (Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology) – the equivalent of a biopsy to confirm malignancy.

The FNAC obviously was accurate enough to classify it as suspicious for thyroid papillary carcinoma and the standard operating procedure was a total thyroidectomy followed by radioactive iodine treatment a little later.

My thoughts once I was diagnosed with the carcinoma were simple –

1) It’s a disease, it needs to be treated

2) There was clarity in what needed to be done – no two ways about it

3) My husband and I almost unanimously decided to go ahead with the surgery at the earliest – we did not even have to discuss

4) We had Health Insurance and so could deal with the expenses

5) The risk of my voice changing / me losing my voice was something that I had to take – the nerve for the vocal chord runs right behind the thyroid and there is a risk of that getting damaged during surgery.

What I was trying to figure out was – the reason for this development?

Reading up on the subject / talking to the doctor did not give any clarity since there was no known family history, no thyroid related problems and overall no health problems, no exposure to radiation growing up etc
I was not questioning Why me? Rather How? The futility of this question becomes obvious when you do not get any answers.
All I got to know was that thyroid nodules are very common, malignancy which was a rarity earlier seems to be now becoming an epidemic warranting the removal of the thyroid.
It is important to note that the parathyroid glands (2 on each side) are located right behind the thyroid – almost embedded and during thyroidectomy, the chances of these getting damaged is high. The parathyroid glands regulate Calcium in the body. Calcium is essential and is very significant to the functioning of the neuro-muscular network i.e. it is mandatory for the nervous system and for the muscles in your body to function normally.

In my case, during surgery the left parathyroid glands (2 out of 4) had to be removed as there was a very large adenoma (the glands were swollen). We were informed before the surgery that there could be other facts that would get uncovered during surgery and the surgeon would have to decide the best course of action at that point of time. This was acceptable and agreed by us.
This is a very rare scenario where both Thyroid and Parathyroid are simultaneously removed.

Fortunately, I have had a successful surgery and have recovered quite quickly and am back to work and working out J

Of course I am on Thyroid and Calcium supplements for the rest of my life and I have to monitor my calcium and thyroid levels on a regular basis as also keep a check on Thyroglobulin levels (the cancer marker) but these are small inconveniences in the larger scheme of things!

I wanted to document this to highlight a couple of points which I believe are essential –

* Health Insurance is a mandate – no matter how secure your job is, however healthy you are, however rich you are or whatever your age! Having health insurance at work is not enough!

* Knowing your body well, understanding the signs it throws out and being aware of the changes in your body, goes a long way in prevention / enabling a better prognosis.

One of the reasons for me to recover quickly and get back to a normal life is my following a healthy diet and fitness regime. Being a vegan and trying to avoid refined and processed foods to a large extent ensures that my exposure to chemicals and other deliberate contaminants is reduced.

I can’t dispute the fact that I have been lucky to have a brilliant diagnosis, a fabulous surgeon and a lovely endocrinologist! Not to forget my wonderful husband – who I believe was Superman