Where would the light shine through?

It's been nearly three months since I last wrote! Wow. Every time I have a little free time, it crosses my mind to come update the blog and then I think, "No, not today." And for some reason, tonight the answer was, "Yes." The traffic on this blog is starting to pick up, as I near the two year anniversary of my diagnosis. I guess the older the blog is, the higher priority it gets. A lot of people come to my blog through google searches related to the low iodine diet. I've had a few people email me over the last few months too. People with thyroid cancer, or people whose close loved one has it. I really love exchanging the emails. Please write me and let's talk.

The reason I've been so busy is that I'm in a yoga teacher training program. I work full time, so it's a tight squeeze. I love being busy, I really do. I put things on the calendar and make my life busy, but I also schedule trips and getaways. But I do need a lot of activity happening. I started the teacher training on January 1st, which is coincidentally Johnny's and my fifth anniversary. The teacher training has been amazing. I'm in a very special place in my life, being 21 years old. Things are changing, opening up, inside me.

I do have some updates with my health. Still almost two years post-diagnosis, we're still going round and round on this, wondering if cancer is growing and if I would need surgery. To recap: I have small pieces of cancer leftover in my neck. They are too small to be completely eradicated by radioactive iodine so there's no point in using that, and the pieces are too small to be surgically removed. They're too small to biopsy even. My endocrinologist says the cells have characteristics of cancer, as there is no hilum. My thyroglobulin levels have stayed around 2.0 since July. So the beginning of February I had another round of tests. I get checked every three months now. I live in Sacramento now, so I have ultrasounds and bloodwork done at the Kaiser in Sacramento. The facility is nothing like the Roseville Kaiser I'm used to going to. The Sacramento facility is old and outdated. Kind of eerie. I'm serious, it's just an ugly and old place. I still have cancer at both facilities, but I prefer the Roseville location. Although, I had surgeries and traumatic experiences at the Roseville Kaiser. There's lots of scar tissue there when I pull into the parking garage. Okay, Sacramento is fine. It's also very close to where I live. Under three miles.

I didn't plan to get really upset and freaked out this time around. But I ended up really stressed out, anxious, and scared all over again. The ultrasound was very upsetting for me because I felt like the tech was measuring a bunch of things, and in areas where there isn't cancer that we know about. I spoke to my doctor on the phone about it and she was ambivalent. Isn't it scary when a doctor says that? It's like she's giving me permission to worry. There is a 1cm enlarged lymph node on the right side (my cancer has always been on the left) and it's large enough to see the hilum, so she can tell it's not malignant. We saw that last time too. But now there are other small slightly enlarged lymph nodes and Dr. Chan can't tell if there's a hilum or not. She doesn't see a hilum, but doesn't know if that's because the cells are so small. So she said basically we don't know until the bloodwork comes. (Are you in agony wondering what happened? Imagine how I felt....)

Six days later, the thyroglobulin came back as "stable." That's what my doctor called it. But when I got the email and went and checked the test result before she ever called me, I actually read it the other way. I saw the number and misinterpreted it. It went up by 0.2 since last time. What Dr. Chan called "stable" really really upset me at the time. It's very strange to find out that your intuition was wrong. I thought I was sensing that bad is coming, and the numbers are going up and I was panicking, but I was wrong. It's odd to try to turn around your whole thinking on something like that. I thought I had a premonition or something, but I was wrong. And I was glad to be wrong, but I had to turn inward and ask what is going on here? It's like the opposite of the power of positive thinking. How did I get myself so upset and tormented by something that wasn’t the truth? My worry and anxiety was thick and took awhile to dissolve. People around me were asking how the test results came out and I would tell them in a confused way that everything is actually good.

My doctor wants to re-test in three months. Because the thyroglobulin is "stable," those smaller enlarged lymph nodes probably are not cancer. My doctor is no longer concerned. Had the numbers increased, that might suggest there is growth, but not the case.

Within a week, I got to thinking that it's time to start eating better again. I started to feel empowered. I started to think, okay I guess I'm never having surgery. I started to feel that the cancer in my neck may never grow big enough to necessitate surgery, so I better improve my nutrition and make sure the cancer stays the same size. I've eaten vegan for a year now. The first six months, I was really healthy. Over the summer, though, I ate a lot of sugar. A lot of candy. And over the holidays, I indulged in too many non-vegan desserts. I feel so gluttonous looking back on it. I don't have the luxury to eat sugar with impunity, vegan or otherwise. I do believe sugar feeds cancer. So for me to be eating candy all the time, it's ridiculous. The holistic nutritionist I saw had input on this. She said something about my neurotransmittor receptors being damaged. And I believe it! Sometimes I hear the message so clearly form my brain: Get some sugar. Or a cigarette. Now. I didn't always hear the message clearly; I just went for the sugar that was usually in the house. Anyway, I'm getting off track. I have issues with sugar. I'm pretty sure we all have issues with some substance to varying degrees. I think because I don't drink or use any mind-altering substances, and because of my regular yoga practice and also because of having cancer, I'm very much in my body. I probably inhabit my body more than most people. I'm very sensitive to my body and what it does. I am always listening and always taking note. If my stomach has a whisper of a gurgle or growl, I take in that information and file it away. So yeah, I'm super aware of my sugar intake. It's hard to change a behavior, though.

Right after I found out that the cancer in my neck is stable and not growing, I recommitted to better health and started juicing twice a day. I was getting a bit of a cold, and I think the juicing really helped with that. But then a few weeks later, I fell off and ate a shit ton of chocolate. Wtf?! Whatever. It was leftover from before I was vegan (so over a year old) and I think I've felt sufficient shame and now I can move on.

Growing into a yoga teacher has been great. Yoga has been so healing and helpful for me, and I get giddy when I get to share it with others. I'm in a great program and my teacher is so knowledgeable.  It's been a challenge, though. I've had a lot of physical pain. My left hip is the main pain I feel. My teacher gave me some suggestions and that helped at first, but then it will flare up again and I lose mobility and flexibility in my hip for a week, until it improves, only to be hurt again. Regularly practicing has been hard on my body. Let me be clear: yoga shouldn't ever cause injury for anyone. I think I have an unstable pelvis and am misaligned, so injury is inevitable. I have an appointment with a chiropractor this week, so I'm really hoping I can gain some insight on what's happening there. I also have left shoulder pain that has come back; it stems from my second surgery. And then I have wrist pain that just recently started. I've had to modify and take a look at my habits and posture. I realized that I sleep with my wrists clamped, no idea why, and of course that explains why I sometimes wake up to numb arms, wrists, and/or hands. So I bought a wrist brace and am taking it easy, yada yada, it's already a little better since I became aware of it. I'm definitely learning a lesson here. Every time an injury comes, I have a whole new appreciation for that body part. I'm really done learning this lesson. Yoga isn't all physical, though. I always enjoy getting to a place in my body where I'm focusing on my breath, and my thinking mind has been turned down and I can almost just float in space. It's hard to do that when your hip hurts and your back hurts, though. It will get better.

I’ve been in an interesting space. As I mentioned earlier, I feel like life is opening up a little right now. For all the changes my cancer experience has brought about, I don’t know that I’ve ever thought “I feel like life is opening up.” I mean, cancer opened me up to a deep pain. I’m more open and exposed than I ever could have been if I didn’t have the illness. I think about my own mortality in a way I never could have before. I can’t donate blood. Can you? I’ve been opened up to that. But what I’m referring to is that lately I feel like more light is coming in. If there were no cracks, where would the light shine through? I’m doing things like observing prenatal yoga classes and baby & me yoga classes. And all I feel is light. Also being in my new backyard is amazing. It’s like a park back there. I’m getting in all the sun I can. I’m ready to let the light keep shining. I do feel a shift in me to being more positive. It’s been dark for awhile.

In January I started creating art. I’ve never really done that before. I think I’ve been creatively constipated for awhile, so it feels awesome. Here’s what I’ve been up to. Drawing and painting the thyroid was quite cathartic, especially the cancer part.

Here’s what I’ve been eating lately. Please know that I am human and I do eat shit food sometimes, and I only really photograph the attractive, colorful food I make. Let’s not pretend I’m some raw vegan who only eats bananas for lunch. That’s cool….but I’d rather eat chili. And there are 11 Chipotle locations in Sacramento. That's just a fact.

green smoothie with banana, kiwi, coconut milk yogurt, greens, etc

ginger/carrot/tangelo juice

ginger/pineapple/cucumber juice

blueberry coconut pancakes

kiwi pancakes

lemony lentil cous cous broccoli salad

tangry green smoothie: juiced lime, ginger and tangelo, blended with banana, spinach, blueberry coconut yogurt, wheatgrass powder.

buying up the rainbow when i grocery shop

lemon raspberry pancakes

vegan grilled cheese with raspberry and dill

first day of spring treat: banana, spinach, kiwi, coconut milk yogurt, oj, wheatgrass powder.

So I'm well fed! 

I still have a lot of fears about the future, and I'm really afraid of developing another type of cancer, or of having a condition that would making having children difficult or impossible. But fortunately I'm reading a few great books right now that line by line cut away all the fears I have and reassure me that I'm fine now. Very deep concepts about life and our oneness and that we're all individual creative unique expressions of god. Specifically I'm reading A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield and Moving Into Stillness by Erich Schiffmann.

Thanks for listening. If you read this whole post, you're incredible.