Stories about surviving "invisible diseases"?
April 22, 2019 10:04 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for articles, personal stories or anything else I can read about living with or after non-obvious/"invisible" diseases, particularly thyroid cancer.
I'm about a year removed from treatment for thyroid cancer, and I'm just now having a bit of trouble processing the whole thing.
I was diagnosed with Hurthle cell carcinoma and had a total thyroidectomy in December 2017 with follow-up radioactive iodine ablation three months later. After a bit of a scare with elevated tumor marker levels, everything normalized and my bloodwork has been clean since last summer. My surgery was textbook, RAI was effective without major complications, and I feel like I was overall very fortunate.
The problem is, I'm having some issues with the processing part. My diagnosis came just as I was starting nursing school, and I barely had time to think, let alone deal with emotional fallout, over the next year and a half. I refused to take any time off, scheduled surgery and treatments around classes and clinical, and graduated this past December. I just passed my NCLEX a few weeks ago, which has slowed me down enough to actually start thinking.
I'm a very private person when it comes to my health, so many people in my life don't even know I had cancer (my in-laws don't, for instance). Also, thyroid cancer isn't a particularly visible type of cancer--other than my neck scar, I wasn't left with any obvious signs (I didn't lose any hair, for instance). The recovery from surgery was incredibly difficult and exhausting (especially alongside nursing clinicals), but largely invisible. I did RAI during my spring break from classes, so even that didn't disrupt school for me.
As dumb as this is, I feel like a bit of a fraud when I describe myself as a cancer survivor. My mother died early and horribly from colorectal cancer when I was 17, so that was the specter that always hung over my head. It's not as if I wasn't expecting to encounter cancer during my lifetime, but I wasn't expecting a) this type or b) for it to be this early (I was 34 at diagnosis).
Is there anything I can read about something like this to gain a little perspective? I'd appreciate any personal stories, as well as any articles or books about dealing with thyroid cancer or other "invisible" types of diseases. I do plan on speaking to a therapist about it, but I'd like to do some reading in the meantime.
I'm about a year removed from treatment for thyroid cancer, and I'm just now having a bit of trouble processing the whole thing.
I was diagnosed with Hurthle cell carcinoma and had a total thyroidectomy in December 2017 with follow-up radioactive iodine ablation three months later. After a bit of a scare with elevated tumor marker levels, everything normalized and my bloodwork has been clean since last summer. My surgery was textbook, RAI was effective without major complications, and I feel like I was overall very fortunate.
The problem is, I'm having some issues with the processing part. My diagnosis came just as I was starting nursing school, and I barely had time to think, let alone deal with emotional fallout, over the next year and a half. I refused to take any time off, scheduled surgery and treatments around classes and clinical, and graduated this past December. I just passed my NCLEX a few weeks ago, which has slowed me down enough to actually start thinking.
I'm a very private person when it comes to my health, so many people in my life don't even know I had cancer (my in-laws don't, for instance). Also, thyroid cancer isn't a particularly visible type of cancer--other than my neck scar, I wasn't left with any obvious signs (I didn't lose any hair, for instance). The recovery from surgery was incredibly difficult and exhausting (especially alongside nursing clinicals), but largely invisible. I did RAI during my spring break from classes, so even that didn't disrupt school for me.
As dumb as this is, I feel like a bit of a fraud when I describe myself as a cancer survivor. My mother died early and horribly from colorectal cancer when I was 17, so that was the specter that always hung over my head. It's not as if I wasn't expecting to encounter cancer during my lifetime, but I wasn't expecting a) this type or b) for it to be this early (I was 34 at diagnosis).
Is there anything I can read about something like this to gain a little perspective? I'd appreciate any personal stories, as well as any articles or books about dealing with thyroid cancer or other "invisible" types of diseases. I do plan on speaking to a therapist about it, but I'd like to do some reading in the meantime.
Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
In-Between Days by Teva Harrison
posted by carrioncomfort at 11:21 AM on April 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
In-Between Days by Teva Harrison
posted by carrioncomfort at 11:21 AM on April 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
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posted by something_witty at 10:14 AM on April 22, 2019 [1 favorite]