A Reason to Celebrate

So, last week was my 31st birthday...and we celebrated...a lot. We went to dinner with my favorite in-laws on Tuesday night. Went to my mom's house for a delicious home-cooked dinner and cake (Death by Chocolate...yummy) Wednesday night. My sweet husband arranged for my mom to watch the kids so we could have a grown-up birthday dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant on Thursday night. And then, the best part, I got to spend an entire weekend with only the Hubs! We just relaxed on the sunny, sandy beach, ate lunch, ate dinner, read books, and ate some more.


But, mostly we celebrated good news! No, I'm NOT pregnant again! At the end of February, just when I thought our family may have made it through all of our sicknesses, I found a large lump in the front of my throat. I immediately knew that whatever it was, was growing on my thyroid. Of course, it happened to be late on a Friday afternoon when I noticed it so I couldn't get in to see a Dr. until Monday afternoon.
If you look closely at my neck, you can see that my right side is swollen in this circus picture.

After an agonizingly long weekend of worrying, while trying to put on a happy face at the circus and our sweet daughter's baby dedication, I made it to my appointment. They immediately ran a CBC to rule out possible lymphoma, which they did. Then, the Dr. came in to examine me. She confirmed that I had a large growth of some sort on my thyroid. She tried to calm me down a little by telling me that thyroid cancer is rare, but was a possibility. Then, of course again, came the waiting game. I had to go back the next morning for a thyroid blood test, and then they immediately sent me over to the hospital to have an ultrasound. After sitting in the waiting room full of cancer patients, laying on the hospital gurney during the ultrasound, trying to make out what I was seeing on the screen, the ultrasound tech came back in and said the radiologist said it appeared to be a cyst. "Ok, that could mean a lot of different things...so???" She said if he thought it was cancerous they would've done a biopsy then and there. I immediately broke down with relief. They set me up with an ENT for the next week. The ENT had reviewed my case, but wanted to perform his own ultrasound. The right side of my thyroid was extremely swollen with the cyst, but my left side appears normal. He still wanted to perform a biopsy to confirm that it was for sure benign. So, he numbed my throat, told me not to swallow, or breathe, and stuck a 3" needle in the front of my neck...TWICE! He drained the cyst as much as he could with the 2 needles. It didn't hurt, but felt really strange, almost like pressure on the inside. Thankfully, the biopsy did come back benign!!! So, for now, they are just going to watch it closely.

That kind of thing sure can put into perspective what's really important in life. And, I'm trying to keep that perspective in my everyday!

Numbers 6:24-26
The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace. (NKJV)