More WAITING Rooms and WAITING....

More tests today. More mapquest directions and trying to navigate Interstate traffic, one-ways, a parking garage, painted arrows, a stairwell, doors, more hallways and more arrows to find the office where I would have a sonogram of the lumps in my neck and a bone density scan.

In 2005, my first surgeon removed my cancerous thyroid and 30 lymph nodes, one was cancerous. Lumps grew back in about six months. In April 2009, my second surgeon went back in and removed 6 DIFFERENT lumps, two were cancerous. He did not remove any of the original ones we had been following. However, since one of the two lumps DID NOT show up on the thyroid uptake scan, the pet/ct scan or the MRI, they now know they cannot assume the lumps are NOT cancer just because they don't look suspicious during testing.

Each step felt like I was walking the plank. I was emotional and hormonal, although my new female endocrinologist thinks that once I get my artificial thyroid medication leveled out, I might not cry as much. She doesn't know that that might be a losing battle. I am a crier, anyway. My hubby graciously calls me the Weeping Prophet. A charismatic brother once told me that I have the gift of tears. I don't know what causes it, but I feel things and I feel them strongly. Usually I reserve my feelings for others and don't waste them on myself.

The bone density test revealed that I have more density than normal for women my age in my back, but I have moderately lower than average density in my hips.

The initial sonogram (the technician can't say much, I peeked a few times, and listened to when she stopped, pushed harder, then typed) showed the lumps were still there on the left and the right side. It doesn't mean it is cancer, it doesn't mean it isn't. They need to compare these results with the previous sonograms to see if new lumps have developed and if the old ones have grown.

Now, I wait. My next endocrinologist visit is October 26th, then I find out the complete results of the battery of blood tests, the sonogram and the bone density. At that time, we decide a course of treatment for cancer and for the possible side-effects of previous cancer treatment.

Now, the waiting game.
I wait
and wait
and wait
for answers,
and wait on the LORD for strength.

Psalm 27:14, "Wait on the LORD;Be of good courage, And He will strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!"

And, I also have this on my side - thyroid cancer is the slowest growing cancer.

So as I wait, it won't be growing.
It will just be keeping me company.

Since it is going to be a part of my life, maybe it should start carrying my Kleenex.