Episode 25: Not The Good Cancer!

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Thyroid cancer is NOT the good cancer!!!

I’m going to try to keep this episode clean because I get pretty hot about this topic. 

I can remember the first time I heard this. My husband had just been diagnosed and I was making my way through the list of people I needed to tell and about four phone calls in I heard it - well at least it’s the good cancer. 

At that moment I was trying to keep my head above water. Each time I had to hear myself say “he has cancer” it felt like my heart would break a little more. I was exhausted, sad and scared. So when I first heard it I registered it as a crappy thing to say but just continued on with the conversation.

I couldn’t really understand. Why would someone say that? It didn’t feel like I was telling them about a good cancer. The doctors didn’t say - hey you have thyroid cancer but don’t worry it’s the good kind. 

I can’t, for the life of me, understand where that came from. 

First of all there isn’t one type of thyroid cancer. There are many different kinds and some of them are so aggressive you really don’t have much time left once you find out you have it. Most people who said this sentence didn’t first find out what type of thyroid cancer it was before saying it. 

I get it, I have a friend who had thyroid cancer and she had her thyroid removed and that was it. It hadn’t spread and she didn’t have to worry about it shortly after surgery. But even if that is best case scenario - she still had to have her entire thyroid removed. That changes your quality of life no matter what happens next. 

I don’t know of any other disease or disability that people minimize either. You never hear - oh you just broke your back - you’ll live. Or it’s just heart disease - you’ll be fine. Who was the dipwad to be the first one to say that in the first place?

My husband has papillary thyroid cancer. I get it, things could be much worse. But people who have this type of cancer can be like my friend - have their thyroid removed. Make it through radiation treatment and not have to do much of anything else other than having to take a pill for the rest of their lives. Then there are others like my husband. Who’s cancer has spread before the thyroidectomy and have an aggressive form of the disease.  

His first surgery was 7 hours long and not only did they have to remove his thyroid they had to remove a matted mess of lymph nodes and muscle. That doesn’t sound like a good thing. He’s lived for years having to deal with the affect of taking medication and watching things slowly grow inside him. That’s not good and it certainly isn’t great to watch him go through either.  

He’s going on his sixth surgery. They literally watch tumors and lymph nodes grow and when they are big enough they go in and take them out. Picking little pieces out of him little by little. That takes a special type of person to be able to live knowing they have cancer that can’t be removed but that he has to let grow so that it is big enough at some point for a surgeon to find.  

Let’s take into consideration all the important things that run through your neck and chest. Large blood vessels and nerves that don’t need much to be damaged. Or how about this, the thyroid is precariously close to the vocal cords. When you have your thyroid removed you do so knowing there is a possibility that one of your vocal cords can be damaged and your ability to speak and your tone of voice can change. You know what happens when both your vocal cords stop working? If left untreated you can die and to treat it most often means having a tracheotomy. A hole in your neck! 

Thing is, on the outside - other than a scar across your neck - no one can see the signs of disease. It’s hard for people to understand that even though you are healing fine on the outside you are still battling on the inside.  

When people first started telling me that thyroid cancer is the good kind I wouldn’t confront them because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. But now it takes everything in me not to punch them in the throat while I simply say NO there is no good type of cancer so let's not say that. 

So please let’s stop saying this. Thyroid cancer patients may get to live with the disease - some longer than others. But it is not something to minimize with a crappy sentence. 

Thyroid cancer is not the good cancer! 

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