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Living With Thyroid Cancer, An Interview With Megan Stendebach

© Keri

-Hello, Megan, welcome to Suite101. Please tell us a little about your background.

Well, I am about to turn the big 4-0! I have been married for almost 16 years to Steve, whom I met dancing. We have one terrific 12-year-old son and two lovable collie dogs and live in San Antonio, Texas. I work for a web page design company, and I volunteer as the Conference Coordinator for the Thyroid Cancer Survivors' Association, Inc.

-Many of our readers are also battling thyroid cancer. I’m sure that they would like to hear more about your journey. What was it that first prompted you to seek medical advice?

In 1997 when I was 35, I happened to touch my neck one day as I was driving. I felt a lump by my voice box and immediately thought, "This is serious!" I broke out in a cold sweat because about 20 years earlier, one of my brothers had found a lump on the back of his neck and died of cancer 10 months later at the age of 16. I was very scared. I had no symptoms, I felt fine. I went right to my family doctor who assured me, "Don't worry, it's probably just a cyst. Women get them all the time." Unfortunately, there was something to worry about.

-What was the process after that initial visit? How did you feel when you received the diagnosis?

First I had an ultrasound which showed a nodule. I was referred to an endocrinologist who did six fine needle aspirations (FNAs) where tiny amounts of tissue were withdrawn with a syringe. The look on his face told me that this was serious. I remember waiting at home later that day for the doctor to call me with the results. I was scared to death and vacuuming like crazy, trying to do something to keep from falling apart. But the noise of the vacuum drowned out the phone, so I missed the doctor's call! A while later, my husband called me, saying the doctor had reached him and given him the news. As soon as Steve told me it was cancer, I started to cry and shake. He repeated what the doctor had told him, about this being the easiest cancer to treat, and if you have to have cancer, this is the one you want. At the time, that statement was a bit of a consolation. But hearing that I had cancer was still terrifying, no matter how great the statistics were.