bavin's Journey with Papillary Carcinoma, Thyroid Cancer

I completely lost my voice for an unknown reason at the time. My primary physician suggested many different reasons:laryngitis, asthma, a cold, and allergies. But after numerous tests nothing was explained.

I was happy to be finally diagnosed with thyroid cancer and have a reason for my voice loss. But for a girl going into high school, hearing the words you have cancer can be tough. Having cancer wasn't in my plans

I underwent a total thyroidectomy removing the entire thyroid along with a partial lymph node dissection of 19 lymph nodes that were found to be cancerous. I was in a little pain but not too terribly. The surgeon did a wonderful job with my scar as well. I had a tube in my neck for about two weeks after.

They were not able to salvage the nerve going to my vocal cord that was laden with the tumor. As a result I learned my vocal cord was permanently paralyzed and that I might not be able to speak regularly again.

I then finished my treatment with scans that showed the cancer was gone!

I then underwent thyroplasty to implant an object to help my paralyzed vocal cord so that I could speak normally again. It was an overnight surgery that besides opening up my neck again was not bad at all.

I now had my voice back and cancer free!

Starting two years after everything had finished I started having bad chronic pain in my neck associated with scarring from radiation and nerves around where I had surgery.

With different types of muscle relaxers, nerve shots, narcotics, and depressants all to tryt o help the pain, I had to decide how I was going to manage the pain. With a lot of the medicine I could not function at school. I decided to go off all the medicine, I use a TNS unit now to control the pain, and control my stress level to help the pain.

I celebrated five years from being diagnosed a few months ago, and excited that I could come through. I now live a healthy normal life, in college and very involved in thyroid cancer awareness! I still struggle with chronic pain but it is a small price to pay for everything. I'm blessed!

I then had radioactive iodine to remove the rest of the cancer. Besides having to be isolated from everyone and not touch anything, it was painless and not a problem.