Lump 3

Just to elaborate on a brief mention of Lump in yesterday's blog: here's the scoop.

My surgeon is 6 foot 4 inches Greek man. He reminds me a little of Jeff Goldblum for some reason, maybe he is a Greek Jew. My surgeon wants me to call him John. So we will. John sat beside me for an hour and read all of the reports to me, word for word, explaining every piece of confusing terminology. He let me know that he had requested a larger amount of time with me than usual, with no interruptions, because of the sensitive nature of my case. John drew me a ton of diagrams on that scratchy crumply paper that they roll out on the exam table (which I never sat on) and then ripped it off for me to take home to show Chinua.

All of this is very wonderful and a little frightening as well. I think, why does he want to spend so much time with me? Is it because my case is so bad? In reality it's because they would usually go ahead and remove something like this right away, just because of the medium probability of thyroid cancer. John said it was anywhere from a one in ten chance to a one in four chance. (What?) Anyways, he gave me the choice, but he doesn't want to operate on me until the baby is born. Fine by me. I'm not that worried, seeing as I've had this thing for five years now.

I've been told several times now that if I had to ask God for cancer, I should ask for thyroid cancer because it's so easily treated and 96% curable. (When I'm telling anyone about this, I always say 99% curable, because it sounds better.) It seems to me that what they're saying is it's better to lose a toe than a finger. Okay, that's fine, but add the complication of this to my already complicated life and you may find me sliding off some slippery slope somewhere.

But I hear from my mom that Synthroid is great stuff, and she should know, since she's been on it for almost thirty years. Actually, I seem to recall her getting great bursts of energy from time to time while I was growing up. Or maybe that was the coffee. I actually feel really good about all this right now. God is giving me shots of grace and I'm happy to be alive, and making Christmas cookies with Kid A today. He's the best help ever. The YaYa Sister? Not so helpful. Good at licking the spoon that I just scooped the baking powder with, though, and with scooping great handfuls of batter in her mouth even when I tell her to stop? Yes, she's good at that. I gave them both a beater to lick yesterday, and felt really and truly like a mom.

What I really want to know is whether they can do a two in one and take my wisdom teeth out at the same time. One is poking through and I think they could save money on anesthesia if they just took Lump and the teeth out at the same time.