Low Thyroid Hormone? What's The Link?

Your thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland at the lower front of your neck. It acts like the body's thermostat and impacts almost every system in your body. When this gland begins producing lower amounts of the thyroid hormone Thyroxine it is called Hypothyroidism. Both men and women can develop this, however, women are about 5 times more likely to suffer from it. It can occur at any age and once it develops it almost always becomes a lifelong condition.

Once diagnosed, you will likely be prescribed some version of the drug Levothyroxine Sodium, or Synthroid.  Dosage varies, depending on individual levels of the hormone as a result of your blood tests.

I have discovered an excellent resource on this subject and wanted to share it with you.  Please check out Dana Trentini's blog called Hypothyroid Mom.  Dana talks about everything you ever wanted to know about this condition, its symptoms and effects on your body, and how to live better with the condition!

So what is the link to breast cancer?  In the early 1970's studies began to show that women with thyroid disease had an increased risk of developing breast cancer over those women who did not have thyroid problems. Studies today continue to confirm this link. Treatments for breast cancer patients, such as slowing down the production of the estrogen hormone - which disrupts the delicate balance of all hormones in the body - can also cause thyroid disease, which was true in my case.

Perhaps I already suffered from hypothyroidism and it went undiagnosed until my breast cancer diagnosis, but it did not show up in my blood tests until after I was taking the anti-hormone Tamoxifen.  This threw my body into early, medically-induced menopause and upset that delicate balance.  Now I take Levothyroxine Sodium everyday for probably the rest of my life.

As you will learn by reading Dana's blog mentioned above, there are a multitude of symptoms that you might suffer from, which would indicate hypothyroidism, but it is in your best interest to get a simple blood test now!  There are also some pretty scary effects it can have on your body so please please, ask your doctor to test you as soon as possible!


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Cassini's 20 Year Mission Is Coming To An End

This subject is completely off topic for this blog but I just had to celebrate this amazing journey and the milestone Cassini has reached today!  This morning around 2 AM PDT the spacecraft made its first ringplane crossing of Saturn's rings placing it between the rings and the planet itself, skimming the outer edge of the atmosphere. On September 15th it will make its final dive into the atmosphere and become a part of Saturn forever.

I have been fascinated with space travel since childhood and have been paying close attention to programs like Hubble, Voyager, Curiosity and Cassini.  As a photographer, these space travelers have held my dream job - to photograph and study our solar system.  

If you would like to see the timeline of Cassini's journey you can check out the JPL website and find its timeline, learn about the craft, and go behind the scenes with the JPL team.  If you want to take it a step further, you can download the app NASA's EYES and take virtual tours of several ongoing missions.

Caregivers Need Love Too!

A cancer patient’s caregiver is as important to them as their team of doctors.  Many patients have several caregivers while others have only one.  It could be a spouse, parent, child, sibling, co-worker or a dear friend.  This person signs up for a long hard road.  Caring for someone with cancer is not easy -physically or emotionally- and it takes at least a year to get to the end of treatment.  For those living with stage 4 cancer it can go on for many years.  The outcome may not always be survival, and they must carry that weight as much as the patient themselves.

Caregivers need just as much support, if not more, than the patient.  They are the ones who drive the patient to each of their appointments.  They sit with them while they receive chemotherapy.  They can listen to the doctors and collect important information that the patient might miss. They hold the bag or can when the patient is nauseous.  They do all of the cooking because the patient cannot deal with the smells of most foods.  Some patients need help bathing.  They have to keep a positive attitude around the patient even though they may be fighting back tears or anger.  They have to convince the patient that everything is going to be OK, even though they are not sure themselves.  They may have to help the patient with bandaging, draining tubes, or taking medication.  They have to get up at 3 AM to rush the patient to the emergency room if something goes wrong. 

They do all of this while trying to maintain their own daily routines such as family, meals, and their job.  I applaud every caregiver out there for their strength, endurance, and unconditional love!  Thing is, who cares for the caregivers? 

Fortunately there are many programs around today that do just that.  They provide support and information for caregivers on a range of subjects such as time management, financial planning, ideas for stress relief, even nutrition.  Organizations like the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Alliance for Caregiving all provide information on their websites.

The best plan is to have more than one person helping the patient.  That way you can split the responsibilities and relieve some of the stress.  It can be especially hard when you simply have no one else to help.  One of the best things to do if you are trying to care for a patient alone is to seek out a support group.  You can do this by phone, through email, or even online.  Chatting with other caregivers is the best way to learn the ins and outs, and gather answers and advice from other caregivers who have been through all of this before.

Where to begin? You can use the links I have provided here, or you can talk to the patient’s healthcare team to get you started in the right direction.  Most cancer centers have libraries you can visit to not only research the patient’s particular type of cancer, but they are also a great resource for meeting other people in your area who are dealing with the same issues.

As the patient, you also need to be able to seek out a caregiver once you are diagnosed.  If you have no immediate family that can help you, try asking co-workers, friends, or the healthcare staff where you are receiving treatment.  It is extremely important to have help during this time and not to be too afraid to ask for it.  You cannot do this alone, nor should you have to!

My mother was my primary caregiver and she had relatively no help.  I can not even imagine how hard that must have been for her, to worry that her child might die before her.  How hard it must have been to watch me lose all of my hair.  I am sure I did my fair share of complaining as well.  Mom...I love you and I appreciate you, and I thank you for being the best caregiver I could ever have!

Hairology 101

Going bald during chemotherapy is only the beginning of the cruel joke.  The punch line is when your hair starts to grow back and it is someone else's hair!  Where did these curls come from? Why does my hair now have a wave in it? What is with this thick dry texture? 

I used to have long, straight, silky hair.  Now, I have this thick wavy mop I do not recognize.  I have no idea what to do with it!  I realize this is really nothing to complain about, I mean, who doesn't want a nice head of hair? The problem is, I spent the past 47 years working with my old hair, learning it's nuances, finding out what it needed, and what cut it preferred.  

Over the past 3 years I have stared into the mirror, mouth agape, as this foreign hair flows from my scalp like some kind of alien.  I take brush and hairdryer in hand like a pro only to have it do the complete opposite of what I need it to do.  The harder I try to get the wavy parts to lie flat, they stick out even more just to spite me! I try to get my part on the side, it flips right back to the center and I swear it is mocking me! I have even gone the way of hair product, which I never needed before, to try and tame these coiled locks. Waste of money.  Spackling paste would do a better a job.

Initially I began asking everyone I could about this phenomenon, and the answers were all the same..."Oh that is normal, it will get back to your old hair in a few months!" While it is no longer "chemo-curls," that kinky curly or perm-like stuff, the wavy thick mass has stuck around like a bad habit.  So I soldiered on and let it grow out just past my shoulder blades. Yes, the curls turned into waves once the hair got heavier, but now I had what resembled a sort of bird's nest carpet! It literally bounced when I walked, and not like those pretty models you see in shampoo commercials either!  

As if the hot flashes were not enough, now this hornet's nest was making me so hot I could barely breathe, and it almost strangled me to death at night. It was like I had become Medusa and the snakes decided to rebel! Finally I had enough and decided to cut it all off again.  You see, in my naiveté, I thought if I did this, the new growth might be back to normal...not! Now it is just a shorter mop.

Aside from the waves and strange texture there is the color.  My hair came back darker than my natural color, and with more gray. And no, not salt and pepper gray that would look nice for my age, oh no, the gray came in the form of a bride of Frankenstein stripe dead center from the top of my head!  Trying to part the hair on the side is my way of hiding that stripe, so when it flips right back to a center part I know for sure it is mocking me!  

My new plan of attack is to let it grow to just between my jaw and my shoulder making it heavy enough to hold that side part.  Until then I am waging a war I know I can't win.  You know that old wive's tale about talking to your plants? Yes, in the mirror, I talk to my hair. I ask it why it is doing this to me.  I try to be nice and complimentary, even leave the conditioner in just a bit longer, brush it with love, to no avail.  As I stare at it, a stray hair will literally push it's way out in the wrong direction in complete defiance.  Resistance is futile...

That cruel joke I spoke of? Surviving breast cancer is the hardest battle to fight and win.  The aftermath is a complete loss of identity one must fight to find all over again.  We do not look the same in the mirror, from head to toe.  Everything about us has changed, both physically and mentally.  Our lives have changed. It gives us a chance to experiment with ourselves and try to find our new comfort zone.  I am still experimenting with the "new me" and while I have not yet settled in to this new identity,  I look forward to the journey.

The battle with my hair rages on...

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How to cope with fear of breast cancer recurrence

Fear and PTSD

A cancer diagnosis of any type can bring on a whirlwind of emotions. Anxiety, depression and fear are the most common.  These emotions can get worse once treatment is over due to cancer-related post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD).

In my case it all began with my breast cancer diagnosis during Breast Cancer Awareness month, October 2012, one month before my 46th birthday. I had a mass in my right breast that had started to burn and ache, so I took advantage of a program here in my city that provided mammograms for $100 during the month of October.  Since I had no insurance at the time, my general physician had to do the referral, and once he took a look at me, that simple mammogram turned into a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound.  I was then brought in for a biopsy on my breast and right armpit.

While sitting in the dressing room after changing back into my clothes, my soon-to-be Nurse Navigator came in to give me the bad news.  I had three tumors in my right breast and the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes of my right armpit.  The official diagnosis was stage 3b Invasive Ductal Carcinoma (IDC) estrogen receptive-positive or ER-positive at 90%, that had metastasized to the lymph nodes.

Of course my very first thought was "am I going to die?"  My second thought was about losing my hair.  I had just spent the past 2 years getting my hair exactly how I wanted it after a bad haircut choice, and now I was going to lose it all.  My third thought was about my mother and how she was going to cope with all this. My fourth thought was about the man I had only been dating for about 2 1/2 months by this time.  Would he leave me? Would he decide this was too much to deal with after only knowing me such a short time?  And if I was going to die, dying all alone, without love, was even more frightening. This emotional roller coaster raged inside of me for the entire year of treatment and beyond.

Treatment consisted of: 6 rounds of chemotherapy (twice a month); a right modified radical mastectomy and removal of 15 lymph nodes; 8 more rounds of chemotherapy (every week); then 6 1/2 weeks of radiation every day except weekends; and finally, anti-hormone therapy with the drug Tamoxifen.  I was then thrown into physical therapy for the prevention of lymphedema which I was at high risk for in my right arm.  The movies they show you about lymphedema are so harrowing I would have done anything they asked to prevent that from ever happening to me! Next was the hypothyroidism diagnosis and a new medication I would have to take for the rest of my life. I will discuss this terrifying development in another post. I was in treatment from November 2012 to October 2013.

Now I know many of you are thinking.."But, you survived! What's the problem?"  The title of an article written by Katy Waldman, staff writer for the online magazine Slate.com, said it beautifully..."Stop Demanding Positivity From Cancer Survivors." Most people think that those of us fighting and surviving cancer should be warriors and have this super positive attitude about beating cancer.  First of all, our doctors did most of the hard work, we just showed up when they told us to, kept our support and caregivers close, and tried to stay positive.  I do not recall ever feeling like a warrior.  Not all survivors are up to the task of walking/running marathons, or being a warrior for the pink ribbon campaign!  Many of us fall into depression, anxiety, fear of recurrence and PTSD.

There is also a huge misconception that by leading a less than healthy lifestyle we gave ourselves cancer.  Truth is, even the healthiest people get cancer.  At my cancer center I met a woman who was a marathon runner, worked out every day since high school, was a vegetarian and all around health nut...she got breast cancer.  She felt betrayed and defeated by her healthy body.  It might have been a hereditary gene, or perhaps the environment, but she certainly did not do it to herself.

As a survivor I live in a state of fear everyday.  I fear for my future and find it hard to make any solid plans or set goals with such uncertainty.  I fear that I will never find love again.  That man I was dating at the time of my diagnosis? He eventually could not deal with the side effects of the drug Tamoxifen I was dealing with and stopped coming over, finding himself a new girlfriend online. I spoke to several women at my cancer center who told me similar stories.  One woman had been married for 25 years to - a doctor - with two children, a nice house, yet once she was diagnosed with breast cancer her husband divorced her and began dating a woman much younger than her.  Since then I have heard story after story revealing the same truth...men leave because, what...we are broken?  We are the same women, have the same soul, are capable of the same love, we are just missing one or both breasts! I truly find it difficult to not wish upon these men a bit of prostrate cancer and see how they feel then! But my soul is not that cruel. I do not wish cancer on anyone!

Then there is the fear of recurrence.  I recently read a statistic about my certain type of cancer that still gives me nightmares!  In an article written last year in the online magazine Scienceblogs.com, the writer stated that "conventional medicine doesn't consider breast cancer patients cured at five years.  We usually speak of ten year survival, because we know breast cancer, particularly estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer, can recur late, sometimes even 20 years later." I am only 3 years out of treatment and 2 years away from my oncologist giving me the "all clear."  But am I really clear? in 20 years I will be 70 and probably unable to endure this type of cancer treatment again.  So in my fearful mind, I tentatively only have 20 years to make something of my life before it's all over.  Of course as they say, I could still get hit by a bus tomorrow!

To most of you reading this it must all sound extremely dramatic and silly, but to someone living in this fear it can be debilitating.  There are days I simply cannot function because I cry so hard it hurts. Every post I write for this blog is written with tears on my cheeks.

While doing some research I found a list of typical cancer-related PTSD symptoms on the Mayo Clinic website and could not believe how many of them made me say "Yep, that's me!"  Here is that list:

• Problems sleeping because of intrusive dreams or flashbacks of trauma
• Feeling hopeless
• Memory problems
• Trouble concentrating
• Avoiding activities you once enjoyed
• Feelings of guilt or shame
• Irritability and anger
• Self-destructive behaviors, such as drinking too much or taking unusual risks
• Uncontrolled sadness and crying spells
• Hearing or seeing things that are not there

"It's normal to have some of these symptoms as a cancer survivor."

BreastCancer.org posted their own list as follows:

• Nightmares or flashbacks about the cancer experience
• Continuously focusing on the cancer experience
• Avoiding people, places and events that remind you of the experience
• Trouble sleeping
• Extreme irritableness 
• Intense feelings of fear
• Being overly excitable
• Feeling helpless or hopeless
• Shame or guilty feelings
• Bouts of crying
• Feeling emotionally numb
• Sadness or depression
• Loss of appetite
• Trouble maintaining personal relationships
• Self-destructive behavior (alcohol or drug abuse, for example)
• Memory problems
• Concentration problems
• Being startled or frightened easily
• Getting no joy from activities you used to enjoy
• Hallucinations

Other studies have added different symptoms to this list...

• Panic attacks
• Avoidance of follow-up checkups or other appointments, or anything you associate with your cancer or treatment
• Worry that any change in your body means your cancer has returned

Personally, every three months when I have my appointment for a checkup with my oncologist I fight the urge to cancel or reschedule.  When I get there I fidget in the waiting room.  Once in the exam room (for reasons I still cannot define) I start to cry. My oncologist is not only brilliant, but one of the nicest guys I have ever met and will always hug me and tell me I am beautiful, which only makes me cry harder!  Then, after they take 3-4 vials of my blood, I sit there impatiently waiting for the results hoping that it is negative and I am free to go home. After that measly 2 hours I am physically and mentally exhausted and now I have to wait a whole three months to do it all again!

Every time I get a back ache, a muscle spasm, achy joints or feel a strange lump anywhere on my body my mind races right to cancer and the panic sets in.  Every time I cough it is lung cancer! If I get a headache it is a brain tumor! It's like being a hypochondriac 24/7, even in your sleep.

So you see, while we did survive the disease, the life it left some of us with was no prize worthy of beating our chests in true warrior fashion and hopping on to the band wagon for the cause!  We struggle everyday just to go on, to force a smile, to find the energy to face the day alone, or to find sleep when the day is over.  I am a bit surprised I still have eyelashes due to all the tears I cry and I should probably buy stock in my tissue maker!

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