It started with a lump in my throat.
I don’t mean the metaphorical lump, the kind that comes when you’re feeling a rush of emotion and trying to hold back tears. I mean literally.
One day nearly a year ago I noticed that there was a lump on the right side of my neck that wouldn’t go away.
Even now after writing that sentence my hand reaches for that spot, a leftover instinct borne from weeks of checking to see if it was still there and always finding that unnatural bump. I didn’t think much of it, until it was all I could think about.
The first words out of my primary care physician’s mouth when I finally made an appointment to determine the nature of the lump: “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not cancer.”
But she scheduled an ultrasound just in case.
A precautionary ultrasound turned into an appointment with an endocrinologist, which turned into a fine needle biopsy, which turned into a phone call from my new doctor in mid-October to inform me the biopsy had revealed suspicious cells in a nodule on my thyroid, and it needed to come out.
Suspicious cells. Another way of saying my primary care physician’s initial assessment was wrong.
I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact that I had cancer. It’s such a loaded word. But it’s what I had – a papillary microcarcinoma of the thyroid, a subtype of papillary thyroid carcinoma, the most common type of thyroid cancer. I’ve even got the scar to prove it.
Maybe it’s because from the very beginning, I was told I had the “good” kind of cancer: “If you’re gonna get cancer, this is the one to have.”
It’s kind of true – typically, thyroid cancer patients don’t need any kind of chemotherapy or radiation as simply removing the thyroid gland is usually curative, and in my case I only needed half of mine removed.
Maybe it’s because my cancer was minimized from the start: “It’s not a big deal, you just need surgery and you’ll be fine.”
And I minimized it to other people – it’s not a big deal, I just need a surgery and I’ll be fine. Which was true. I didn’t want anyone worrying about me, and I didn’t want to worry myself. I was told that I was handling everything remarkably well.
I had my surgery on a Thursday morning in November. I was back to work less than a week later. In January I was put on a new medication I’ll have to take for the rest of my life to regulate the hormones my thyroid can no longer regulate now that it’s been sliced in half. I moved on with my life, and it felt good.
I don’t really like to talk about it, for fear of seeming overdramatic or attention-seeking. Thankfully, I had my surgery in the middle of winter, when it’s acceptable to wear a scarf every day to cover a fresh surgery scar on your neck and fend off questions about it. I apply scar cream diligently, so it’s faded to the point where you wouldn’t really notice it if you weren’t looking for it. It was something that happened in my life, but I didn’t want it to define me.
All the feelings I’ve successfully been able to mash down, ignore or dismiss came back to the surface a few weeks ago, when I got a letter in the mail inviting me to a “survivors day” dinner hosted by the hospital where I had my surgery. I qualified because “you or a member of your family were diagnosed or treated for cancer” at the hospital.
I struggle with the word “survivor.” Because I don’t really feel like I survived anything.
My cancer was no big deal, remember? Members of my own family have survived cancer — my cousin was diagnosed with ovarian cancer when she was 18, and graduated high school bald because of the side effects of her treatments.
That’s what a survivor looks like. All I had was a simple surgery.
I didn’t respond to the dinner invitation, because I don’t feel like I deserved to be there. I couldn’t bring myself to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with “true” survivors whose lives were drastically changed by cancer, who came close to losing their lives to this disease, and talk about my neck scar and my pill.
I would feel like an impostor, like people would wonder why I was even invited.
There’s this thing called “survivor’s guilt” that occurs when a person believes they have done something wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not. But what do they call it when a person believes they’ve done something wrong by being called a “survivor” at all?
The answer to that question is going to take more than just a column to unpack. I still don’t like talking about it (which begs the question, why would I write a column about it?). I’m still trying to reconcile this life-changing thing that happened to me with the fact that I still don’t want it to be a big deal (even though it kind of was).
I want to acknowledge this thing that happened to me, without dwelling on it. I don’t want to ignore it, but I don’t want to pretend it was in any way on the same level as “real” cancer. I don’t want pity, I don’t want to be called brave or heroic for being a “survivor,” but I want to be able to look at a picture of myself B.S. (before scar) without feeling a twinge of sadness.
I wish I had the answers so I could neatly wrap up this column without feeling like I just word-vomited down the page. Less than a year post-surgery, I know it’ll take some time to work through my feelings about my thyroid cancer and adjust to life with half a thyroid. There are definitely some adjustments to be made that involve more than just the emotional parts.
But I will leave you with this: My experience has opened my eyes to the fact that being a cancer survivor is more than just hashtags and 5K walks and color-coded ribbons. It’s not always obvious and out in the open like that. It doesn’t always involve chemotherapy. Cancer looks different on everyone.
And survivorship looks different on everyone. Kindness in the face of that unknown is imperative. Most of the time, we truly never know what someone else’s story is, what someone else might be silently struggling with.
Sometimes, like the thin white scar fading on my neck, you wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t looking for it.
