Kathleen's Story: Thyroid Cancer

Recorded August 19, 2002

Listen With 9 minutes, 57 seconds.

Username: ksrand

Go to Kathleen's personal Web page

My name is Kathleen. I'm 40 years old. I'm a single parent, a professional woman. My daughter is 14 years old, and I was diagnosed with cancer when I was 38, which is pretty young.

An Unwelcome Diagnosis for a Single Mom

My type of cancer is thyroid cancer, which, as you probably know, is one of the rarest types of cancer. I had had a troubling thyroid for a number of years, and so when my doctors told me that I couldn't wait any longer to get my thyroid out after a questionable biopsy, I was very, very scared. Very upset. You know, really just terrified, because being a single parent, being a sole source of income, of support and emotional stability, [this] was a big shock to me. I wasn't done living yet, being only 38. [laughs]

So, I went in for my surgery. Not a whole lot of pain. I have a big scar on the front of my neck, which took me a while to get used to. I call it now my second smile [laughs], and I kind of wear it as a badge of courage. The surgery, like I said, not too much pain afterwards, after the immediate surgery, but lots of pain and trouble with my neck, and then the questions about cancer. When I was in the hospital, I was told they took my entire thyroid and some peritracheal lymph glands, and that they got everything that looked suspicious--is the key word there. So I felt fine. I thought, "Oh good, everything's fine."

So six weeks went by, and I went back to my endocrinologist, and she said, "I don't like this report on this pathology," which is the report on the tissue that was taken out. And she sent it to another pathologist. Well, she called me at work about two weeks later, and I didn't know that it was my physician calling me at work, and she said, "You have cancer." And I didn't hear a word that she said after that. I knew I had had it before but thought it was all gone, and then to get another call back two months after my surgery. [laughs] I hung up the phone with her, and I ran out of my office. I don't know why, I just ran right out of my office. To see me running was quite, I'm sure, entertaining, but I was very, very upset. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know anything.

So I went on the Internet, looked up the kind of cancer that she told me I had, but there weren't a lot of resources out there. I was very scared. I couldn't say the word "cancer" at all for at least two months. And it was kind of funny. I'd call it "it." I'd call it "the C-word." It was funny, but it wasn't funny to me. [laughs] And then, it seemed like when you're told you have cancer, everything you see in the media refers to cancer, so it would make me even more upset.

So anyway, my daughter, who is now 14, was 13 at the time, was a pillar of strength for me. I guess strength can come from those you least expect it. And I've always considered myself a very strong person, very independent. My family gave me zero support, I guess because they just weren't used to dealing with the idea of cancer.

Getting Radioactive--and Simply Active

About three weeks after being told over the phone at work, which I would hope doctors would never, ever do that ever again, it was so horrible, I had to go off all of my medication, which was very difficult when you don't have a thyroid. And I went for my I-131 radiation treatment, and that made me feel very bad. [laughs] Even though I only had 30 millicuries, I still don't have much, my salivary glands don't work well. My taste has diminished probably 90 percent, and this has been a year after my initial radiation treatment.

So I went through that, and about a month after that, I was told my blood levels, my globulin levels, which I'm not really sure how those work, were funny, so I would have to be monitored more closely. Anyway, by that time, by August I could say the word "cancer." I went to my first Relay for Life that the Cancer Society puts on, and there were others around me who had cancer of all different kinds. I could say, "cancer" and it wasn't terrible. And nobody--I didn't have to explain. It was very, very emotionally supportive to go to a place where everybody had cancer at one point or another and you could talk about it.

Thyroid cancer isn't one of the worst cancers that you can get. I know that there are much, much worse, but I think that the journey for me has been the ability to say "cancer," the ability to talk about it without crying. It's like a little specter that lives on my shoulder now, and I know that it's here for a long while. I picture it in my mind, you know? Initially I was just going to brush it away, and it was going to go away and never come back. And now I know that that's never going to happen. So in my mind, my little cancer specter has moved into my shoulder. He built a house, looks quite nice. There's a yard that gets mowed regularly, and at least they keep the house up nice. [laughs] So my cancer specter will be with me always. It comes back every now and then to bite me. Like every time I have to go to the doctor for a check-up, or I just had another I-131 scan and, you know, those are scary. They say, "OK, now you're radioactive. You have to stay away from people for three or four days."

And it makes it difficult, especially being a single parent. But you know, like I said, my pillar of strength, oddly enough, has come from my teenage daughter. She has really been there for me to talk, to listen, to be supportive and very, very surprising to me. I've heard it said that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Well, in that case I must be the strongest woman in the world, [laughs] or one of them. I like to tell people now that I'm a survivor and I'm going to survive. I can deal with taking medication every day, the rest of my life. I can deal with a very visible scar on the front of my neck. I call it my second smile, like I said before.

I would encourage everyone to get their thyroid checked, because you never know if you've had cancer for a long time, and especially if you're a single parent. That's been one of my biggest focuses-- is, you know, how do you deal with cancer? How do you tell your kid? How do you deal with all of it? Who can you lean on? Who can you trust? Because, as you know, some friends that you have, if you tell them you have cancer, it really freaks them out, for lack of a better word, and they run away. That happened with me. I had a very, very good friend who was supposed to come out and be with me during my surgery, and she couldn't make it, so I had to draw my strength from other places.

Finding Unexpected Support from My Teenaged Daughter

I would say, at first I just tried to tell my daughter, "Oh, you know, I'm fine." And she can see right through me. I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. You can read my face, for lack of another, better word, like a book. So I was very honest, very open with her. Not real graphic, you know, like this cell means this and this cell means that. Or this blood level means this or that. But you know, talking about how cancer makes you feel. How the radiation makes you feel. How you may be tired. Some days, I can't taste things very well. You know, these are all an entire year afterwards, but when you're in the midst of surgery and treatment, kids are surprisingly strong.

I was afraid I was going to die, so I had my will and everything all taken care of. But the biggest support, like I said, was from my daughter, saying, "You've got to believe that you're not going to die. It's going to be OK." And I could listen to her and I could listen to me. Somewhere we found a common ground where, yeah, I had to believe and I had to be strong, even stronger than I ever thought I was.

That's my story. Like I said, my cancer shadow, my cancer specter has moved here, moved in, is going to be with me the rest of my life. I'm hoping I can learn to get along with it. I don't want to take it out to lunch or be best friends, but I will have to deal with it for the rest of my life. On my one-year anniversary of my thyroid cancer surgery I had a big party, and we celebrated that I had been here another year. I intend to have a party every year on that date. To me, it's been even more joyful than a birthday party. I mean, this was a big year. I turned 40 [laughs], had my one-year cancer party and life does go on. And so, I'm going on with my new cancer specter on my shoulder. I'm stronger. My daughter and I are closer, and like I said, I'll be dealing with cancer my whole life, but it's not going to define me. I'm going to define it. And I think that's all I have to say.

Help |  About CSN  | Legal & Privacy Information