medical travails

So, readers of this blog most likely know that I had thyroid cancer two years ago, and ended up having two surgeries to have my thyroid out (half, and then the other half.) I now have to take synthetic thyroid hormone every day upon waking up, for the rest of my life. I was always a low-risk case and have never had anything but good results- not counting the original cancer diagnosis.

I've always had a nagging feeling that all that wasn't really necessary. The first half of my thyroid that they took out was sent to the Mayo clinic, and it took them over two weeks to deliver a diagnosis of cancer. If there are weird cells inside a membrane, it's not cancer. If there are weird cells that escape a membrane, that's cancer. I can't help but think that they weren't really sure mine had escaped the membrane, so they went with "cancer" just to be safe.

The new research results that aggressive breast cancer screening isn't actually improving survival rates, of course, feed into this. As far as I know, I've had a thyroid nodule all my life (I've always had trouble with tight necks, and refused to wear turtlenecks from as soon as I could refuse things.) 60% of people have them in autopsy studies. What if it would have been just fine to leave it there? What if I could have had a long, healthy life without being dependent on our society being functional enough to deliver me 30 tablets of Levoxyl every month?

I usually console myself by thinking that I could have had to deal with Real Cancer 20 years down the road, but the doubts remain.

It's not like there have been absolutely no side effects of all this. For one thing, my blood levels of TSH have *never* been in the proper range, ever, since they took my thyroid out. I feel like I'm both more tired and worse at sleeping now (the one is an effect of hypothyroidism, the other an effect of hyperthyroidism.) I'm still always cold (hypo) but sometimes irritable (hyper.) I feel like I have less energy than two years ago- but is that because I'm 28, or because I'm relying on some synthetic thing to regulate body processes we may not even fully understand?

My current conundrum is as follows. I have some endocrinologist at the hospital that I see once a year or so. (In the meantime, a highly competent free doctor that I like monitors my blood levels more often at the student health center. For free.)

A year ago, I had a cumbersome whole-body scan (Monday: drive across town, shot in the thigh, Tuesday: drive across town, shot in the thigh, Wednesday: radioactive pill, Friday: 1-hour scan). I thought the endocrinologist said I'd never have to get another one if it was clean (it was.) But now he says I need to have two clean ones before stopping. Why?

Isn't this the definition of an expensive (probably at least $3,000 before insurance) medical procedure that will not increase my health or well-being but drives up the cost of health care for Americans? Every indication is that I don't have (and may never have had!) cancer. They can do a simple, cheap blood test for Tg to monitor for recurrence. I have that test regularly and I always pass it with flying colors.

I can't really see any reason to keep going back to this endocrinologist guy. He's not my doctor. He doesn't know about my health and long strings of test results (he doesn't trust any that aren't done at the expensive hospital laboratory.) I never feel any better after seeing him, and I have to pay him. He never makes any recommendations that are different than those of my free doctor. I'm inclined to just ditch him altogether. I'll be checking with my real doctor at the student health center to see what she thinks about that.