I have cancer

Yes, you read that right. 

I, Juliana, have cancer.

You can sit down if you need to; I am too.

I was diagnosed with Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma in early September. In case you don't want to click on the link, PTC is the most common form of Thyroid Cancer, and is caused by exposure to radiation. I'm going into surgery tomorrow to get my thyroid taken out. Hopefully, this will be the one and only medical procedure I'll need to win my battle with cancer.

About a year ago, my primary doctor felt something on my thyroid, and send me to get a sonogram. The very friendly nurse, who thought I was in middle school and kept calling me sweetheart, assured me the nodule was nothing to be worried about. At this year's check-up visit, the nodule grew larger than it should have. Not even two hours after my sonogram appointment, my primary doctor called and notified me he had scheduled a Fine-needle aspiration biopsy for the growth.

A Fine-needle aspiration biopsy is exactly what it sounds like. They stick a bunch of needles in your neck (not at the same time) to grab cells and test them for cancer. The nurses I had during this procedure were also very nice and cracked jokes with me the whole time. And the doctor, mmmmm, he was some good eye candy. The worst part of the procedure was getting stuck with the first needle that had the numbing serum. When the nurse began to inject it, I lost my breath and thought my heart was going to stop. It didn't, but I was short of breath the entire time.  The needles were the longest needles I've ever seen. And they had a trigger mechanism which sounded like someone was shooting a bebe gun. That was pretty nerve racking.  After 8 pricks, they were done. The nurse said they ran out of small bandaids, so he put a huge bandage on my neck. Too bad vampires weren't popular still, or it would've been totally trendy.

About 5 days later, I received a call from my primary doctor while I was at work. I thought it was going to be a quick "We found nothing, have a great day", but it wasn't. He told me what I have, and what I had to do to get it fixed.

To this day, I still don't remember the name of and have and will constantly ask my boyfriend what it's called. I'm not as nervous for the surgery as I thought I was going to be. But then again, ask me how nervous I am tomorrow when I'm in a hospital gown laying on the operating table. Nonetheless, I hope everything goes well tomorrow. I won't know if I'll have stay overnight or not. It all depends on how I come out of the surgery. 

Thank you to my amazing friends and family for standing by my side through these past two months. You guys are the best.