Good news and bad new sort of!
Posted late December 2009 Yesterday I had an ultrasound of my neck and met with my endocrinologist. (For those who don’t know, thyroid cancer is treated by an endocrinologist, not an oncologist.) She had some good news to share. My TG level—the antibodies my body produces to fight thyroid cancer—has dropped from 138 to about 40. Unfortunately, that number should be zero; anything above 10 still indicates the presence of cancer. So it seems my body isn’t fighting as hard—possibly because there’s less cancer to fight. The ultrasound and CT scan didn’t show any new growth, and a few of the spots we’d seen before have actually gotten smaller. So, on the whole, this is good news. Unfortunately, that doesn’t explain why I’m feeling worse even as the numbers improve. Below is an excerpt from the report I gave my doctor during the visit. How am I doing? Most of the time I don’t feel well, and my new definition of a “good day” is one where I don’t need a cane to walk. Since my l...