I Knew It Was Too Good to Be True

May 13, 2009 | Filed Under cancer | No Comments

It’s funny, I was just starting to accept my good health. But a voice in my head kept telling me that something wasn’t quite right.

Since last summer, I’ve gained a considerable amount of weight and I wasn’t entirely sure why. True, I have a healthy appetite, but given my diet (which is much healthier now than my pre-cancer diet) and my daily exercise regime, I couldn’t account for the rapid weight gain — it just didn’t add up. My oncologist ordered routine blood work in March and I’d assumed everything checked out fine because I didn’t hear anything from his office that indicated otherwise. However, he only ordered CBC and a Liver Panel. In April, I went for a routine exam with my family doctor. At that time, she chastised me about my weight and seemed skeptical when I told her I exercised daily. Nonetheless, almost as an afterthought, she ordered more blood work, including the TSH, which is for Thyroid. To my knowledge, I hadn’t been tested for the Thyroid since 2006. It wasn’t something the doctors had been monitoring. Sure enough, when the tests came back, they indicated that my Thyroid was definitely under-performing. Suddenly, the weight gain and the occasional afternoon fatigue made since. So now I have to take a pill every morning — most likely for the rest of my life. This concerns me because the likely culprit is the radiation therapy I suffered through in 2007. Let this be a lesson for you: if you’ve had radiation treatments for any head & neck cancer or even lung cancer, make sure they order blood tests to check your Thyroid regularly. Problems with the Thyroid gland can cause more severe problems elsewhere in the body.

In other news, I received an unexpected medical bill in the mail for $325.00 that I can’t pay.  Fucking hell!