At the Grocery Store

One of the things to remember about Thyroid Cancer is that you usually have some other thyroid disease that proceeds it. Thyroid Diseases are usually autoimmune disorders. Once you are diagnosed with one Autoimmune Disorder, it is likely you will be diagnosed with another. My other thyroid condition is Hoshimoto's Thyroiditis. My other autoimmune disorders are allergy related. I have allergies to foods, food additives, plants and scents. A taste of disodium guanylate or a whif of some good perfume is enough to turn my world upside down for at least a few hours. If you have never had a reaction to MSG it may be hard to understand. Some people have tried to tell me that it is all in my head or that my symptoms have some other cause. I hate that. I am not a hypochondriac. What I feel is very real and very painful. Depending on the food additive, I could be rendered useless for days. Muscle aches, fatigue, nausea or vomiting, diarrhea and migraine headaches are the most severe of the symptoms. Because of this, I have to be extremely careful about the food that I put in my body. I have to read every label and even then I get surprises. The other day I was very excited to have found a new wholesale spice in the bulk isle at Winco. Winco has been my new fave store since I discovered all of the natural bulk foods I could buy there on the cheap. However, not all of their bulk items are natural. I tried a new Taco Spice that I was really excited about. It was 16oz compared to a similar spice in a 3oz jar from Safeway but for the same price. I only used it once and had to dump it in the trash. I still don't know what ingredient did it to me but I'm guessing that there was something in there that was not on the ingredient list. Sometimes a listed item will be very vague such as, "natural preservative". This could mean anything as I am learning. After I ate it, I wanted to sleep but I wasn't really sleepy, I was just in pain. Plus I had dinner to prepare for my family of seven and I didn't have time to be sick. Instead I was irritated. Sometimes I get angry that I am so susceptible to the pitfalls of the artificial world we live in. I can understand why a child with allergies would act our and misbehave. Its extremely difficult when you feel like shit but everyone still expects you to act normally and perform at your best when all you want to do is climb under the covers. Some people tell me, "I ate that when I was growing up and I turned out fine". #1, you are not me and you are not living in this body. #2, the food you ate growing up had the same name, was marketed in the same box and had a similar taste, but the food you grew up with is not the food that is being sold to you today. Food producers now use additives that didn't even exist when we were young. They have slowly switched out the real ingredients and substituted them for artificial ingredients while we weren't watching. I hate this body and I hate the food companies for putting profits before my health.

Through the Eyes of the Canary-A Thyroid Cancer Story

Hi out there. I'm pretty new to this and not yet quite savvy to the blogging world so I guess I'll begin with a little introduction. I'm age 35, married and the mother of three adorable children ages 18, 5 and 3. This could be a story all unto itself but that's not really why I decided to write. A few months ago I found out that I had Thyroid Cancer. This in and of itself is not terribly remarkable. However, the circumstance surrounding how I got the disease is. When I was 14 years old, I hiked 65 miles into the dessert just outside of  Las Vegas, NV. I was with a bunch of hippies and we thought it would be a good idea to camp out at the gates of the Nuclear testing facility with the hopes of forcing a halt to a planned underground nuclear test. The underground testing had been going on for years and some pretty strong evidence showed that, although the government claimed that radiation leaks were contained within the testing facility, they in fact were not. We stalled the test for several days and were on the way to believing that the test would not take place after all, however we were wrong. They exploded the bomb and we were all exposed to a high dose of radiation. Many of those stinking hippies were at least young adults and by virtue of size and physical maturity, would have all been better prepared to resist the effects of radiation poisoning. However, at 14 years old, 5'2 and 107 pounds, I was a slight little thing and the radiation was more than my tiny body could withstand. Now I have a metastasized cancer usually found in adults 55-65 years of age or older. Most people who get the disease usually contract it after a lifetime of background radiation exposure from the sun and/or electronic devices. This is not me. I am here to say that I am a picture of what there is to come from living in a radioactive world. The doctors are not too concerned because thyroid cancer is usually highly treatable and the prognosis is good. But as someone who struggles with the physical and emotional effects of the treatment, it is far from a walk in the park. Thyroid cancer is on the rise with more and more cases being reported every year. I want this blog to be a place to bring awareness to the consequences of living in a toxic world and the implications for our children. Maybe its not too late. If I can do one thing in my life worth doing, it would be to tell people that this is a horrible disease whether or not it causes death. I wouldn't wish this on my worse enemy. If you choose to read on, you will come with me on a journey through daily struggles, psychiatric and medical appointments as well as the mundane day to day things we all go through only they will be written here through the eyes of someone suffering through the disease. I hope you decide to join me.