Damaged

I’m a cancer survivor. Did I ever tell you that? Well, now you know and as GI Joe so wisely taught us...knowing is half the battle.

By way of background, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer approximately one month before my 23^rd birthday. A 3cm malignant tumor was subsequently removed from my neck taking with it my entire thyroid gland. 6 weeks later, I was admitted to Washington Hospital Center’s nuclear medicine department for intensive radiation therapy for 10 days (I was no shit radio active – in complete isolation and posed was a severe danger to pregnant women and had the ability to killed small dogs). There is no family history and no one knows why this happened. 

Fun times. 

The up side – thyroid cancer is extremely slow growing and very treatable. The down side - unlike most cancers that officially go into remission after 5 years, thyroid cancer can come back at any time – 20 years, 30…it doesn’t matter. Therefore, diligence is key and annual full body scans are prescribed. 

Due to changing Dr.’s a number of times, insurance changes, my busy schedule…basically any excuse I could possibly think of …I haven’t had a scan since….2005. 

I’m overdue. Well overdue. 

Due to the relentless nagging of my parents….I made a call this afternoon to my Endocrinologist requesting she fit me in for a scan sometime soon. 

I’m scared. So scared. Scared of going through the treatment, the tests, the side affects again. Cancer took a two year chunk out of my twenties – I didn’t look or feel right for two years. I don’t know whether I’m strong enough to go through that again – and so I’ve put it off. Stupid. I know. I KNOW its stupid, but that doesn’t make me any more eager to know whether or not there are cancer cells still swimming around inside of me. 

I don’t look sick. I don’t feel sick and I’m not about to have my life disrupted again. That’s a great first date conversation starter – “so, I’d really love to see you again but if you put your dick inside me while I’m radioactive, it will probably fall off.”

 

I totally forgot how much guys dig a girl in a hospital bed. 

Don’t worry – I’ll go, I’m sure everything will be fine, I’m worrying about nothing, blah blah blah. But that’s exactly what everyone said when my Dr. felt a lump in my neck…and when they did the biopsy…

I’m just so unenthusiastic about hearing the results – good or bad. 

Frankly, just being in the hospital again makes me feel…damaged.

Place in the sun for redheads?

REDS IN THE NEWS

Have that skin that burns but never tans?

Researchers at Harvard's Dana- Farber Cancer Institute and Children's Hospital Boston think they're close to developing a way of protecting fair-skinned people from skin cancer caused by sun exposure.

The study involved engineering a bunch of red-haired mice and applying a cream to them that turned on the tanning machinery in their skin cells. The compound, called forskolin, is derived from the root of the forskohlii plant, found in India. The mice involved in the experiment turned dark, proving that proper stimulation can cause even redheads to tan.

Because people who tan easily or have naturally dark skin are far less prone to skin cancer than fair- skinned people, the findings suggest, drug-induced tans can protect at-risk people from the disease.

The researchers say that sunless tanning may also keep people from sunbathing, further lowering the risk of skin cancer.

Melanoma is the fastest-increasing form of cancer in the world, accounting for 62,000 new U.S. cases every year and nearly 8,000 deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.

The study appears in the September Nature.