Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see!
In the gospel of John, chapter 9, Jesus healed a man born blind. Afterward, the man was questioned rigorously by the Pharisees regarding his blindness and how (if) a healing had occurred. At one point, when asked to acknowledge that Jesus Christ must have been a sinner, the former blind man said, “If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.”
In August, a nutritionally-aware psychiatrist ordered a blood workup, the results of which showed that my thyroid was not functioning properly; the diagnosis was Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (or auto-immune Hypothyroid). I began a journey to discover whether or not I have Medullary Thyroid Cancer or another form of thyroid cancer.
One of the first things to happen was getting a biopsy on the two nodules on my thyroid. Never mind that 95 % of all thyroid nodules are found to be benign or that no members of my family of origin ever had cancer though several of them suffer various thyroid ailments. However, this first biopsy, about which I posted on September 27, yielded a diagnosis of suspicious cells “consistent with Medullary Thyroid Cancer.” A few days later, my community of faithfilled Christians prayed with me and the family for complete healing. Since then, I have undergone a lot of tests. Each one of them has been negative for cancer or any other condition other than Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. I praise God for this!
Yesterday (Tuesday), we received Part 1 of the written report from the second biopsy supervised by a highly regarded and skillful cytopathologist. On meeting her, I was instantly impressed by her thorough and meticulous approach. My husband has been a real prime mover in securing the involvement of some top-notch doctors, and this pathologist is one of those. Due to John’s diligence, this second doctor had seen the slides of the first biopsy, and she concurred with the reading of them, that is, suspicious looking cells “consistent with Medullary Thyroid Cancer”. She consulted with us at length before and after the second biopsy that she conducted with all diligence.
I posted about the second biopsy on October 14 – here are the results. Unlike the first biopsy, the cells appeared to be typical of Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. The doctor pointed out “The hypercellularity of atypical cells seen on the previous aspirate… is not noted on the … current aspirations.” [Translation – unlike the first biopsy, the cancerous-looking neoplasms were not seen in the second.] However, in a comment to the diagnosis, the pathologist raised the possibility of the test not actually finding the cancer (using the words “geographical miss”). [I figure she has to say this, but for me the results are VERY encouraging.] Still to come, however, is Part 2 of the results showing “molecular markers” in a separate report – the final piece of diagnostic information. Currently, my position is that we can give God all the glory here for removing the suspicious cells! Unless there is evidence to the contrary, I am peaceful.
John is taking a more cautiously, optimistic and empirical approach to the current findings versus my simplistic one; I appreciate his desire to care for me and get a third opinion. So now we are planning to seek additional consultation with a third doctor who is also a surgeon at Johns Hopkins and who saw the results of the first biopsy (thank you, John!); we would like her also to view the results of the second one. If she concurs with the second doctor (cytopathologist) that the second biopsy is clearly different and better than the first, hopefully I can indeed avoid surgery. But if surgery seems to be indicated by anything that arises in the next several weeks, we would hope to complete it this year (2010). Keep up the prayers – things are moving in a good direction!
Back to the man born blind, as his religious leaders were quibbling about the details of his healing. He said,
“This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything.”
They answered and said to him, “You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?” Then they threw him out [of the synagogue].
When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, he found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
He answered and said, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”
Jesus said to him, “You have seen him and the one speaking with you is he.”
He said, “I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him.
NewDecadeNewME - Blog 