Complex Mass: Re-vamping the Fight in the Face of Physical and Emotional Weakness

 Today, I've decided to give up fighting.  I'm on day 3 of a another migraine.  I'm home alone with my girls who are getting much better from a bout of upper respiratory illness.  They are giggling and horse-playing.  I need to work on a radio piece for my new job, but this week has thrown so much at me, I need to clear my head first.  So, I come here to write.  I also took an Imitrex.  The medicine hasn't been helping.  I hate taking all this medicine. 

A good friend's mother and a regular in my yoga classes, my chiropractor, and some folks in my online support groups for Hashimotos urged me to get my thyroid scanned.  I'm on thyroid medicine and my thyroid had never been palpated nor had I had an ultrasound of the thyroid.  This last year I have had a few CT scans, 3 x-rays, 2 MRIs, and countless blood tests.  My main condition which I MUST have daily medicine for had never been evaluated by anything more than a thyroid panel blood test.  I could write a whole other post on my frustration with this fact, but I will just say this.  If you work in healthcare (medical, mental, alternative, or spiritual), listen to your patient/client.  Even if you believe what they are saying is a crock, listen with all your effort.  In their words, you will find the next appropriate steps regardless if their words are medically meaningful to you.

Last week, I had my first thyroid ultrasound.  I had been complaining of tightness in my neck, difficulty swallowing my medicine and some food, dizziness, hearing my pulse in my right ear, and the feeling of being in an airplane taking off in my right ear as well.  It's messed quite a bit with my hearing.  I was prescribed allergy medicine and had an MRI for that complaint.  I don't have seasonal allergies.  I never have.  I very rarely even get a cold.  The MRI showed normal blood flow in that region.  The symptoms didn't go away even when I gave the allergy medicine a chance despite feeling I didn't need it.  I didn't think these symptoms were something I should have to just ignore the rest of my life.  Sometimes the swooshing and pressure change in my head is impossible to ignore.  Being a yoga teacher, it affects my balance and impacts my practice.  It also makes it hard to talk on the phone and at times in person because I can't hear the other person.  That's not normal.  That's not ok.

I got a call Friday that my doctor wanted to review my ultrasound results with me in person.  I went in this past Monday.  These are the results.  Pardon my coffee stains.  I'm a little obsessive when it comes to reviewing my medical records and I had an accident.

I have multiple nodules that are small in the left side of the thyroid - "hypoechoic areas".  Lo and behold, I have a complex mass of a significant size (though apparently they can also be larger) in the right side of my thyroid.  The radiologist has recommended a fine needle biopsy guided by ultrasound to rule out cancer.  It will also need to be assessed if my thyroid needs to be removed even if the mass is benign.  If you look at the size of the mass in comparison to the size of the right side of my thyroid, you can see why it is something that needs further testing.

Many members of the population have nodules on their thyroid.  Not all of these people have been diagnosed with thyroid issues.  However, people with nodules measuring on the larger end and who have a history of thyroid issues, are the most likely to have a malignant nodule.  Malignancies occur in few cases compared with the commonality of thyroid nodules.  I'm supposed to get my appointment for the biopsy today, and at 3:16pm, I still haven't gotten the call.  I'll be traveling to Lexington for the biopsy.  It's a 3 hour trip.

I'm starting my first round of employment in a decade on Monday, and I am just now getting this news.  For almost a year, I have been having symptoms associated with these findings.  I can't begin to explain how angry I am that I am now going to have to deal with this at all.  My hormone numbers were improved in my last bloodwork.  I had several months of feeling better after adopting an autoimmune paleo diet and a no-holds-barred 7 days a week yoga/meditation regimen.  I've added herbs and supplements, cut many of my favorite foods, and tried my best to surround myself with people and activities that feed my soul.  I thought it was working.  I suppose it was a little.

The numbers being more in the mid-range of the half moon is good.  The yellow areas are how I have improved from 3 months ago with the changes I have made and the things I have added.  My iron is improved 10 points as well, but is still way lower than ideal.  My TPO antibodies have increased 2 points, but that isn't very significant.

​Summer before last, I had the worst migraine I have ever had in my life.  I sat and rocked in the bed, crying (but not too hard because it made the pain worse), and waited for it to be light enough that we could wake the girls and get me to the ER.  I wanted to die.  I'm saying that very literally.    

To me that seemed like a reasonable option.  I was done with spending half of every month in pain with the headaches.  I told Creator that night that I would take on anything if it helped me move passed this pain.  I told Creator I'd accept cancer, brain tumor, craziness, aneurysm, all of it.  I'd accept it because it would be a diagnosis and with a diagnosis I could have a plan.  Whether I lived and got treatment or died, I'd have more freedom than I was currently having.  After seeing the neurologist, I got some improvement in my headaches with medication, but now I have had a headache 10 of the last 20 days.  Back to the headache from Hades (not that all of them aren't bad, but I literally would've downed a bottle of pills and died if I hadn't had the ER option that night).  I told Creator that I'd use whatever I was given to improve my life while I am here and to try to improve the lives of as many as I can reach through my experience.  I said, "Please, bring it on."  A diagnosis big or small was the only way out I could see aside from death.  Yes, it's a dark place to be, but it isn't a godless place.

I still don't know what I'm dealing with, but I'm closer to an answer.  I don't know what road lies ahead.  All I know is I am tired.  This year I have lost 2 grandparents, 1 grandparent-in-law, had 2 aunts and 1 uncle diagnosed and battling cancer, 1 sister with a cancer scare, a niece with blood clotting issues in the brain, and 1 sister under immense stress and battling Graves disease.  I am currently grieving another great loss that leaves me recognizing how alone I really am.  Surrounded but alone.  All my close friends live away from me and are busy people.  None of us enjoy phone calls.  My husband must work regular hours.  My parents are busy working and caring for the other kids in the family.  I've always preferred being a loner, but sometimes, I wish I could just sleep in someone's arms and not have to tend to anything. 

Not even all of my family have this information yet.  Right now though, I'm physically and emotionally weak and I process through writing and dialogue with those who want to engage me.  One reason I love a good blog.  Twice this week I have been brought to my knees by physical weakness in yoga.  I was ignoring my body and attempting to practice by pushing myself.  That isn't yoga.  I've been heartbroken recently by this coming now and more personal issues.  I'm an emotional wreck.  A functioning emotional wreck.

I asked about my inability to maintain in my yoga practice and my fear of losing my physical gains if I back off in my yoga support group.  I got this answer: "Kelli, these are the times to totally stop trying and start following and listening to your

breath. Strength comes from the breath and if you become a witness to your inhales and exhales and your body's reaction to the breath, you will discover relaxation and the panic mode dissipates. It is always good to concentrate on basics, and just observe the breath connection from head to toe. Just lay on the floor, stretch and breath, and be a witness. Understand you are strengthenIng inside out. We all should do this on a regular basis, but, I think we view this as no effort towards our practice, when it is the most important part. You never lose a gain...it remains with you."

I stopped and realized that all the pushing, making myself keep going, and searching for answers beyond the medical is wearing me out.  I realized that I have not focused on one of the most fundamental aspects of yoga or spiritual practice - equanimity.  I have not found my balance.  In all the striving, I have built my willpower up so intensely that I do not know when to allow myself a break or to stop, celebrate, and live in my gains.  I just plow down the next row.  Start trying to fix the next biggest issue.  I want so badly to be a light to myself and others that I think I have let my ego get out of control.  I have overestimated the impact I can have on a life, including my own.  My efforting will only go so far, if it doesn't create space for me to also take the time to live what I have learned.  Sometimes, we can try to make up for the lack of self-esteem and self-worth in our lives by building other parts of the ego like self-confidence.  I have been relying on my own strength and my own mind to do everything for myself and others.  At this moment, I really just want to be loved and carried for awhile.  I'm done fighting.  I'm going to breathe instead.

I have to make a plan.  I have to hone my spiritual and yoga practice.  I have to re-think my self care.

1. Maintain a 7 day a week yoga practice along with sharing yoga with others.  Listen to the body and focus my personal practice more on maintaining breath and meditative movement than physical strength.  Try not to worry that because I didn't physically push myself a little harder that it means I have not made a great effort on my mat.  Remember that is not yoga.
2. Continue eating the autoimmune paleo diet.  Continue taking my supplements.  Focus on eating real meals and not snacky meals out of convenience.  I need more nutrition.
3. Focus on my real work.  The work I am called to do and the work I get paid for.  Aside from children and homelife, focus here more than maintaining or creating friendships.  Remember that I have friends.  The friends who care for me will make an effort to be present for me whether or not they feel I am resisting their efforts or overwhelmed by them. (An introvert's concerns.)  Those friends who truly appreciate me will be with me regardless of my moods or my ability to make an effort back.
4. Take up a more intentional meditation practice.  Try for a 40 day consecutive practice of a familiar meditation, but do not bruise myself if I have to miss a day.  Just start again when I can.  Start very simple.
5. Don't be afraid.  Creator doesn't give us anything beyond our abilities to learn and grow from.  I will find truth in this experience and I will find my truest allies and those who care for me most.  Above all keep writing.  Write more.  Learn and read more.  Hope that my words mean something beyond what they mean to me.

That's the plan, until there's another.  So, let me begin resting.  Let kindness carry me a little.  I cried out in pain.  Universe has answered as the crow flies.

"You can't fully appreciate the light until you understand the darkness." - Black Yoga Asanas Ritual Vol. 1

If you would like to read more about this particular aspect of thyroid disease, these links are where I have been doing my own research on what is to come for me.

Thyroid Nodules - Cedars-Sinai
Does the Risk of Malignancy Increase When a Thyroid Nodule is Larger than 2cm? 
Risk of Thyroid Cancer Based on Ultrasound Findings
Thyroid Nodules - AAFP