By the Way, A Word About My Charity

Yesterday, I celebrated 5 years of being a cancer survivor. Now, the word survivor can be confusing. I’m not cured yet. I do have traces of suspicious tissue remaining in my body. But they only show up in the blood work and aren’t found on MRIs or Nuclear Body scans, so it’s not life threatening or anything.

The Thyroid Cancer Survivors’ Association (ThyCa) is a truly amazing organization and I don’t know what I would have done without them. The funny thing about thyroid cancer is how misunderstood it is by the medical community in general. You see endocrinologists, not oncologists to be treated (as well as surgeons and nuclear medicine physicians).

And even then, so many endocrinologists do not know how to treat thyroid cancer. ThyCa helped me understand my disease, know what kind of tests and treatments I should be getting. As a result, I’ve been able to choose my doctors very carefully.

ThyCa has educational programs (including a yearly conference and workshops) and support groups all over the  country. They also give money to research efforts.

As I’m writing, the news just reported that obesity can lead to higher rates of thyroid cancer in men. So it’s all the more important that I’m in a weight loss contest with ThyCa as the beneficiary. I only wish I was doing better in the contest. But I did want to take the opportunity to raise awareness.