I’ve been quiet for some time on my journey through recurrent laryngeal cancer.  August 2016 marked the end of my radiation therapy, which was a huge celebration, but it did not mark the end of my journey.  Since then, I have been to hundreds of therapy appointments between speech therapy learning how to swallow, eat and talk to physical therapy to gain and maintain neck and shoulder movement to lymphedema therapy to assist with the proper drainage of the lymphatic system.  Currently, I still attend weekly therapy for lymphedema, wear a night compression garment and use a home lymphatic machine to keep everything flowing.  The number of doctors appointments, specialist visits, bloodwork, PET/CT/MRI scans I have gone to is sickening and the number of pharmacidical drugs I have been on to control various systems it utterly disgusting.  Since the end of radiation treatment, I have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism since the radiation completely killed my thyroid, vitamin defiencies and probable Celiac Disease.  (I carry the gene for Celiac but refused to begin eating gluten again to go through more testing to confirm diagnosis when the treatment for Celiac and gluten intolerance if the same treatment…no gluten).  My entire life style has changed, I have changed physically, mentally and emotionally and although it has been frustrating at times I have been extremely grateful to be alive.  

I continue to be asked on a regular basis if I am sick because I do not sound well and my response has turned into “no, I am not sick I HAD cancer.”  That sense of past tense felt so good from everything that I have accomplished to all that I have been able to see and experience.  Just as much as it used to frustrate me on people asking if I was sick, it now frustrates me on people who know what I have been through to comment on how well my voice sounds.  To them, it may sound good but they don’t understand the daily impact of how I feel about my voice change.  They don’t understand how frustrating it is for me to be in a restaurant or a large open room and not be able to talk, say what I want to say and the energy it takes to do the talking.  Trust me, I know that my voice doesn’t sound good so telling me it does is not true.  Maybe it sounds okay for what I have been through but it doesn’t sound good.  

Now with all that said, I believe I am one of the most attuned people to my body.  Just like the past three times, I KNEW something was wrong.