I have been struggling with when and how to talk about this for a while now...
A few months ago, my blood sugar started rising again... after having been falling on its own without requiring insulin for almost 2 years. I also started having recurrence of other symptoms, which I had experienced 4 times before...
As it happened, I was starting a new job, and my new health insurance wouldn't be active until September 1st... and then I had to get a new endocrinologist and get the process of confirming the diagnoses started.
I just got the ultrasound report back today... Its been an almost two month process to get here... and the cancer is definitely back.
Well... hell...
The good news... so far it doesn't look bad. Only 13 suspect masses, 10 of which are small and may not be cancerous. 3 larger ones are definitely cancer... they're all more than in inch in every direction.
That said, they are all round or ovoid, and they're free not implanted or infiltrated... I can actually move one of them around with my fingers its close enough to the surface... and the larger ones seem to be encapsulated well.
Those are all good signs.
I've also had supporting blood work, which was mostly good... my CEA, creatinine, calcitonin, and thyoid antibodies are all good... which means there is no recurrence of medullary or C-cell anomaly cancers. My thyroglobulin was pretty ridiculously high (1800) and theres some kidney damage that is probably leftover from the rhabdo and the paraneoplastic insulin resistance... but may indicate spread elsewhere.
Next steps are biopsies of the masses, and then a full body contrast MRI to look for distant masses.... particularly on other organs.
The good news is it looks like there was no spread into my chest... the cancerous nodes all seem to be among the few left in my neck after the last three radical neck dissections. None of them were in the mediastinal area, which would indicate direct spread... There's still a chance for distant spread, but hopefully it's just local lymph nodes... the MRI will confirm.
So... hopefully, the solution should be just another round of surgery... maybe another round of radiation after... we'll see.
My work is 100% supportive of me, it should all be good there. And I should be able to work right up to the surgery, and be back working the next week.
