A new website: thethyroidnecklace.com, and some good news!

i finally got all of my test results back  from duke, via the portal internet site. i have  decided that i like this.( better than the confused, half results that i got from my former endo  via the phone nurse last time. )  i have a password, and i just look at the results- at the same time that my doctor sees them.  if she has any comments, she puts a symbol beside the particular report, or result, and i click on that to see what she has to say. i will have to admit that i would have liked to have gotten just a "you're o.k." comment,too.anyway, there was a HUGE difference between the blood work that i had done at my old endos office and the one at duke. my new doctor told me that they had a more sensitive and reliable test at the duke lab, so i will surely go with that! to compare: my first results were thyroglobulin antibodies 5.6 ( anything over 2.0 is considered positive ) ; thyroglobulin 2.3.( also considered positive).   the lab report at duke showed: thyroglobulin antibodies to be less than 0.6 ( considered negative) and thyroglobulin less than 0.1( also considered negative, or if you were me, PARTY TIME!!) let my story be your cautionary tale. if you have doubts or concerns about any test, get a second opinion. it is your life so you should do your best to get the best information/testing that you can possibly get.

now on to the really big news! a good friend of mine, wendy garland, and i have launched a new website called: thethyroidnecklace.com. our purpose is to educate people about thyroid cancer,resources,etc, and also to present a new necklace to a woman who has had  thyroid cancer. we want to show our  support to other thyroid cancer patients, as well as helping the recipient feel better about that huge scar on her neck. the scar fades over time of course, but it does take some adjustment. this is just a reminder that we care about other thyroid cancer patients, and we certainly have been there as well. wendy and i talked about this, and we decided that the recipient does not have to be newly diagnosed, or has  just had her surgery. everyone's  scar heals differently, and a person might be still dealing with issues a few years afterwards. so, please send us your story about your "adventures in thyroid cancer" to our new website if you are interested. we are going to feature one recipient per month to start, but we are hoping that this will take off, and we will be able to feature more women in the future. our website is non-profit, by the way. we are accepting donations for necklaces if anyone is interested in that- hopefully that will be the case!

we have our first recipient, becky drewrey, and her story is on our website. her story is very interesting, and it is good to read about the experiences of others. i got acquainted with becky through my blog, so i am thankful to so many people who have helped me along the way. mary shomon, host of aboutthyroid.com, really got my blog going for me when she did a feature story about it on her website. i would also like to thank my husband for being such a good sport when i got up late at night, a "blog attack" we call it, to write something i  just had to get onto the computer. i appreciate all of my readers, those of you who have made  comments or not. i sincerely hope that i have provided some good information, as well as support or encouragement to other people who are dealing with thyroid cancer.

a big thank you goes out to the graphic designer who did our logo( for free- she has a big heart,too). her name is jessica rose padgett. she took the ideas that  i had in my head for our logo, and made them happen, beautifully, on paper( o.k., computer). so please visit our website and give us your feedback, and let us know if you are interested in becoming a recipient. and thank you so much, again, for reading my blog.