Power of Positivity

 (please excuse the expletive)

I haven't posted an update in some time because there really hasn't been much to post about. The first news that I don't think I shared here on the blog is that my scan that was done on Oct. 11th came back negative for any cancer cells. Ecstatic doesn't begin to describe the feeling I got when I received the email from my endocrinologist.

So, what does that mean for the future of my treatments?

It means that all I have to deal with now is adjusting my medication every few months, continuing to follow up with my endocrinologist, and go for one more scan next October. Funny that I'll see him more than I see my dentist and my PCP. I've been on the same amount of levothyroxine for 2 1/2 months now and I'm feeling great. I haven't had much of any changes in symptoms that you'd typically expect of supposedly being in hyperthyroidism (which is where they want me to be in order to suppress any possible return of cancer cells). I was hoping it'd help me lose weight, but no such luck. Occasionally I'll have a bout of insomnia where I'll wake up at 3am and can't go back to sleep or I'll be wide awake until 1am. However, when I was severely hypo, I didn't feel much of anything either, so who knows where I currently am in terms of my blood work and T3, T4, and TSH. I go on 12/21 for my blood test and then I have the follow up on 12/30 to determine if any change needs to happen with my medication. The only difficulty has been remembering to wait an hour after I take my meds in the morning before eating anything. You bet I'm watching the clock like a hawk! I don't know that I'll ever get used to not eating immediately upon waking, but that's my new normal now and it usually means I eat breakfast quite late or on the go. Not ideal, but it is what it is.

My scar is healing up very nicely and I'm very pleased with the progress. For about 5 weeks, I used Mederma. I noticed that my scar started to itch and that all around the scar was red. It was still puffy despite the ENT telling me it would go down. I started using ScarAway strips during the day and Vit E oil at night. The bumpiness and redness went away within a week.

This was taken on Oct 27th.

This is today.

I've become a little bit more relaxed about putting my ScarAway strips on (unless I know I'm going to be in the sun), but I'm still using Vit E oil at night. Hopefully in a few more months, it'll be barely noticeable.

Now on to a slightly different topic.

As the end of the 7th semester of PT school quickly approaches, I reflect back on the last 2 or 3 years and think that this journey has been anything but easy for me. PT school is freaking hard. It's even harder when you add juggling a family into that mix. Then, it's even harder when you have to deal with cancer. BUT, there are several things that have kept me going through feeling like I was going to fail and why am I doing this and why am I putting myself and my family through these tough times. What are those? My husband, my family, my dearest friends (especially Luciana because she's the only one who has truly understood exactly what going to school and juggling a family feels like and is going through it right there with me - we're almost done...almost done...), my classmates, etc. However, the ONE thing that I feel that has really and truly gotten me to where I am is the power of positivity. For the first 2 years of HG's life, things were dark and hard. After listening to myself, I realized I wouldn't be friends with me if I had to hear what I was saying all the time. So for all of you who had to deal with me, I apologize from the bottom of my heart. I wish I could go back and re-do things. I didn't feel like my old self. You know...the me before HG. The one who loved life. I have never really been a negative person and I hated myself for thinking that way. I had to take a step back and look at myself as an outsider and when I did that, I realized that my negativity was not only affecting myself, but my relationships. I made a decision at that moment that I was going to change my ATTITUDE because all you can really change is yourself. I took the positivity pledge.

Changing my attitude from negative to positive made a world of difference in how I felt about myself, how I interacted with others, and how others viewed me. I realized that after I changed my attitude, my whole world changed for the better. I was happier. I was enjoying my child (for the most part 😜). I was enjoying my family. I was enjoying my time spent with friends. I was enjoying being me. Does this mean that I never had negative thoughts? No. But they became few and far between and I shared them with my husband, my rock, and he helped talk me through my feelings. Don't get me wrong...this change was NOT easy. It took time. It took conscious effort to change my thinking. Sometimes I had to fake being positive to trick myself. Fake it til you make it! (If you have some time to watch these two TED talks, I highly recommend watching them: 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XFLTDQ4JMk and 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVmMeMcGc0Y ). Seriously. Watch them. Starting small and thinking at the end of the day of at least 1 positive thing helps tremendously. Start somewhere and it's like a snowball effect. Eventually, I saw so many more positive things in my life than I had seen in the 2+yrs prior.

I also noticed that the patients in the clinic who were happy and had a positive outlook, even when their situation might not have been very good, had much better outcomes and progressed faster and were discharged faster than those who had negative attitudes or who perseverated on their ailment.

So, how does this tie into my thyroid cancer? I don't have any doubt in my mind that keeping a positive outlook on something as terrible as the C word helped keep me sane. It didn't and doesn't do me or anyone else any good to be negative, so why not just be positive?

This semester has been pretty chill and very low-stress (something that I definitely needed). Besides getting my necessary school work done and being in class 3 days a week, I have been filling my days with taking care of myself mentally, emotionally, and physically (yay for exercise!!), having lunch with old friends, meeting new friends, spending time with friends, spending time with my son and my husband, going on family walks, doing exercise with my family (tennis isn't THAT terrible), and just overall enjoying my life right now.

Until next time! And remember, only YOU have the power to change YOURSELF. 😘