Never Let a Good Calamity Go to Waste
“Neither a bull nor a noble-spirited man comes to be what he is all at once. He must undertake hard winter training, and prepare himself.”
I'm not sure when my thyroid started conspiring to kill me. It only became obvious about three months ago (at the end of the summer of 2019) during a routine annual physical exam. My doctor, a friend, asked me how long the lump on the front of my neck had been there. My response: What fucking lump?
I'm trying not to take it personally. It's only a gland, after all. It has no agency. For the first 55 years of it's life it just went about its business, creating the hormones (triiodothyronine, or T3, and thyroxine, also known as T4) that are critical to an optimally functioning metabolism (which I will no longer take for granted). At some point -- no one can tell me why or how or when -- my thyroid cells started growing abnormally, first forming a nodule on my thyroid and then, eventually, a tumor.
The tumor is already quite large (about 5cm) and will eventually pose a risk to the surrounding organs (the larynx, the trachea) and require a much more invasive intervention if the cancer progresses much further. I'm therefore heeding the advice of the two surgeons I've consulted with and will have my thyroid removed. Surgery is scheduled for 4 January 2020, less than two weeks from when this blog post will be published.
It's taking me some time to reconcile myself to this new reality (up until a biopsy in mid November 2019 there was a chance that the lump in my neck was a benign, congenital cyst).
Two things are proving particularly difficult for me to accept: (1) I won't be able to heal myself naturally given how far the disease has already progressed; and (2) once my thyroid is removed I will be dependent, for the rest of my life, on medicine -- exogenous thyroid hormones -- to replace my own (endogenous) thyroid hormones.
While I can't claim that I would ever desire the challenge of this particular calamity, as some Stoic sages might urge, I will not let it go to waste. I'm re-framing my situation and finding the upside (you get to watch, in real-time):
the prognosis for a complete and total recovery is excellent. The treatment protocol for papillary thyroid carcinoma is a complete thyroidectomy (surgery to remove the thyroid) and, if a needed, a one-time, oral dose of radioactive iodine to destroy any stray thyroid cells remaining after surgery
the surgery itself is minimally invasive (the thyroid is just under the skin at the front of the neck) and will only require a one or two-night stay in the hospital and a few weeks of recovery. I expect to be back to my normal lifestyle (work, training) within a few weeks of the surgery
I'm otherwise in excellent health and am going into the surgery feeling strong and ready to work hard on my recovery
I am surrounded by loving friends and family who have all offered their help and support
my thyroid is fucked up. Like, seriously. It's off the rails, wreaking havoc on my metabolism and threatening the health -- the viability, even -- of the entire organism. Good riddance!
I'm grateful that I live in a time when there's a well-established treatment protocol that can excise the malfunctioning gland and provide me with an excellent prognosis for recovery, including (gulp) medicine that can replace my own hormones and provide me with a normal metabolism for the rest of my life. This would not have been the case a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago I'd be a dead man walking
I have another opportunity to learn about a different facet of the human anatomy and biology, and my experience learning how to adjust to living in harmony with exogenous hormones will help me help others who are facing a similar challenge
I never considered that possibility that I'd get a secondary cancer (only one to three percent of cancer survivors develop a secondary cancer which is different from the originally treated cancer). If anything I thought there was a more likely chance that I would have a recurrence of my prostate cancer (which is still possible).
But that's kind of the point. We don't know what calamity lies around the corner, which unexpected challenge will try to knock us off our feet. All we can do is train for adversity.
To finally put away the childish expectations we had about how our life would unfold.
To be grateful for the opportunity to find out what discomfort can reveal to us about ourselves.
To learn to thrive amidst an uncertain, always-changing world, one which is indifferent if not hostile to our desires.
To gain control of our ego and its ferocious needs so that we may humbly submit to the teachings that this life has in store for us.
To find out who we really are. And what we're capable of.
To finally figure out what really matters.