Lisa

Lisa Marie Wilson’s Cancer Journey

Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid cancer occurs in the cells of the thyroid — a butterfly-shaped
gland located at the base of your neck, just below your Adam’s apple.
Your thyroid produces hormones that regulate your heart rate,
blood pressure, body temperature and weight.

I was always concerned about my thyroid as my mom and uncle had thyroid problems. I talked to Dr. Marsh about it and apparently, it takes years for thyroid cancer to grow, so I had it even though he gave me a thyroid exam and called it normal for the last few years.

May 17th – Luckily Dr. Marsh was busy so I saw Dr. Braunstein who said I had an enlarged thyroid “probably cancerous” and needed an ultrasound.
May 20th – Thyroid ultrasound showed my one inch nodule on my thyroid was filled with calcium.
May 27th – Biopsy was very painful and reported of some “evidence of follicular cancer.”

Spent the month of June trying to find a surgeon to take out my thyroid through my armpit with a robot but was talked out of it by Dr. Braunstein as he felt it was stupid to drag cancer through my body.

July 8th – Thyroidectomy and removal of lympth nodes. Dr. Morrow said it was Medullary Cancer, not good. ;-(
July 14th – Dr. Morrow said the pathologists here in LA couldn’t find cancer cells in Thyroid. No cancer? Good! 😉
He sent the thyroid to a world leading pathologist in Italy.
July 18th – Dr. Italy said “100% Cancer: Follicular variant of Papillary Carcinoma with poorly differentiated features” Not good, but not horrible ;-(

August 10th – I had Radiation treatment on my birthday.

Despite treatment, thyroid cancer can return, even if you’ve had your thyroid removed. This could happen if microscopic cancer cells spread beyond the thyroid before it’s removed. Thyroid cancer recurrence can occur decades after thyroid cancer treatment.

The surgeon Dr. Morrow paralyzed one of my vocal cords and removed all four of my parathyroid glands leaving me dependent on huge doses of calcium and prescription Vitamin D.

Poorly differentiated thyroid cancer is very important to recognize but a relatively uncommon finding. “It is occasionally difficult to know when something should be bumped up to a poorly differentiated carcinoma,” Dr. Hunt said. The growth pattern of poorly differentiated tumors is often trabecular, insular, or solid. Other features can include necrosis, extensive vascular invasion, marked nuclear atypia, and mitotic activity. If there is a component of poorly differentiated tumor in an otherwise well-differentiated papillary or follicular carcinoma, prognosis is affected; some studies have shown that the typical 80 percent to 90 percent five- to 10-year survival in well-differentiated tumors goes down to 70 percent or even as low as 50 percent, depending on how extensive the poorly differentiated regions are.

Liver Tumor

What started out as pain, was followed by a CT scan and a MRI scan that showed multiple tumors in my liver and was followed up with surgery. This is a familiar road for a lot of cancer patients: pain, scans, tumors, surgery, and followup treatment which can include chemotherapy and/or radiation. So the dark and lonely road is walked again. 

I was scared, lonely and anxious. The surgeon said, “Although I’ve never lost a patient on the table, I do have to warn you that there is a possibility that you could bleed out and not wake up.” I wrote him a letter to beg him not to use staples when he is finished with my liver and gallbladder. He called me and said, “My first priority is to keep you alive, my second will be to get out the tumors, and the third will be to do my best to make your scar as minimal as possible.”

 The pathology of the tumor came back as benign. NO CANCER, HOORAY! I didn’t have to have chemotherapy or radiation. It was time to heal and get back to living. I didn’t have a thyroid, parathyroids, a gall bladder or a third of my liver but I had a beating heart and that was plenty.