" If it seems like i've been lost in lets remember; if you think i'm feeling older and missing my younger days......That's why i'm keeping the faith; ...You can get just so much from a good thing,you can linger too long in your dreams; say goodbye to the oldies but goodies, cause the good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems-.... i'm keeping the faith- Yes i am. " Keeping the Face" by Billy Joel

i tend to wish that this cancer had never, ever happened. i have wished to go back in time and nip it in the bud before it got this far- haven't most people thought this? sometimes i can not believe that i actually wanted to keep part of my thyroid- that i was upset that the surgeon said he was going to remove it all. there was cancer in the other side too, darn it!! thank goodness it was all removed. i can not say that i do not miss my "butterfly" ,but boy oh boy was mine ever making me sick! and right before my surgery i had the worse case of thyroiditis that i have ever had. some people i have talked to have never had this- and i am glad. but if you ever have had this- it is painful and i was afraid that the low grade fever i had with it would prevent them from doing my surgery. ( i took Advil for fever,pain,sore throat, right up to the very last day that i could safely do so; it might have caused excessive bleeding during surgery if i had not stopped five days beforehand) i could not believe that it was my thyroid's last stand so to speak, the final injury. but it is gone now, and hopefully things are going to get better.

i had an appointment with a rheumatologist on Wednesday. he is the one that prescribes Vitamin D- prescription strength- for me. my family doctor  sent me to him to be sure that i did not have lupus( thankfully no, i just had a badly behaving thyroid). he did some blood work and found that my Vitamin D level was extremely low.i have talked to a number of thyroid cancer patients who also have low vitamin d levels. i do not mean to say that just because your vitamin d level is low, you might have thyroid cancer. don't get me wrong! i just think that when you are getting blood work done, if you have not had this checked, you might want to ask your doctor to check it. vitamin d is the" man about town" in the vitamin world, so to speak. it can boost your immune system, and may  lower the incidence of certain cancers- especially prostate, breast and colon cancer. my doctor told me that it also helps with "fibromyalgia- like" pain. even if you do not ask your doctor about checking for this, you can get some over the counter. it is not nearly as strong, but it is worth spending some of your hard earned money on.

i also asked my rheumatologist to look at the results from blood work the radiologist ordered. the radiologist said that thyroid cancer, when it spreads, goes to the lungs and bones first. i knew that my chest x-ray was o.k., but no one had explained the blood work " for my bones". the rheumatologist said that it is difficult to really check for bone cancer entirely from blood work, but he graciously looked at my report, and said that it looked good. you know, for the first time since my diagnosis, i am truly beginning to feel like i just might beat this. i have some hope- i'm keeping the faith, so to speak. tomorrow i have the "mystery ultrasound" and office visit with my endocrinologist. hopefully that will go o.k. i feel like i am on a roll now. maybe " tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems..."