Dear Thyroid^TM

• Supporter Christina Colley

• Supporter Mary DiMaggio

• Supporter Rachel Markus

We now have a team logo, which can be seen on both our facebook page and our Relay for Life page. Also, our t-shirts from Dear Thyroid are on their way. Thank you again ladies!

We would like to welcome our team member Angel McMellin home. She received her radioactive iodine (RAI) 131 treatment seven days ago and it is now safe for her to be home with her family – just in time for the holidays.

We have many exciting things in the works to keep our momentum going. The very talented Angel is planning a bake sale and working on a team banner. If you would like to help with the bake sale, please contact her. I know she can take on the world, but I’m sure she’d appreciate the help.

On another note, I am sad to say that my aunt Thelma Kidwell passed away from cancer on Saturday. She battled stage four lymphoma and was in remission for five years before it returned and took her life. She will be honored with a luminaria at the April 16th event.
Remission should be permanent. And we need all the money we can get to find a cure for cancer.

We hope the holidays find your safe and happy, but please take a moment to say a prayer for all of those whose lives have been affected by this terrible disease.

Until next week…

Wings of Hope

Please visit Chris’s team page and donate what you can. I digress, every penny counts and is tremendously appreciated. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to email Chris.

As you know, our Thyrella, Chris Prestano is racing for a cure for thyroid cancer. Her team is called “Wings of Hope“. As Chris says, “If bitching were a cure for cancer, I’d be in remission”. As you can see, even with thyroid cancer, she continues to make us laugh while fighting like hell for a cure for thyroid cancer.

A recent update from Jennifer Bridge, a “Wings of Hope” team member, wote “It’s a Small World“, a beautiful post that I encourage all of you to read.

Recently, Jennifer became another Dear Thyroid Thyrella when she joined us for the “Thyoliday Blues and Truths Blog Tour“.

We have some pretty cool updates from these dames who are, quite literally, kicking thyroid cancer’s ass. Thanks to this OUTSTANDING Dear Thyroid community, each one of us is helping “Wings of Hope” to achieve their goals. What a fabulous Thyamily we are.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

Every contribution counts. Pennies are tight, to be sure. Each of our pennies are adding up to some impressive dollars.

Here is the latest dish from Chris: Wings of Hope: Week 1 Update — 11/29/09- 12/5/09

We are very pleased to announce that only after ONE week, Wings of Hope is Number 1 out of 71 teams for the most money raised for ACS’s Relay for Life Johns Hopkins University on April 16, 2010.  And we couldn’t have done it without you!

We would like to give special thanks to the following people:

Supporters Robert Bruce, Robert Hansen, Shawn Jirik, Kim Spisler, Kim Eisenberg, and Lisa Redmond

• Thyroid Cancer Survivor Carol DiFelice
• Thysister Robyn Davis Hahn
• Thyrella Lori A. Callahan
• Thyroid Cancer Family Member Jeane Kidwel

In our first week, we have grown our relay team to four members:

• Co-Captain Chris Prestano
• Co-Captain Jennifer Bridge
• Thyroid Cancer Survivor Angel McMellin
• Supporter Jen Engesser

A very special thanks goes out to Dear Thyroid for joining our cause.  The three thyroid cancer survivors on our team will be proudly wearing Dear Thyroid t-shirts stating that we are “Kicking Thyroid Cancer’s Ass” during the relay.  In addition to donating our attire, Dear Thyroid has been a tremendous help by promoting our cause on their website: www.dearthyroid.org.  Thank you, ladies!  Your support has been tremendous momentum for us.

We would also like to thank ThyCa (Thyroid Cancer Survivors’ Association, Inc.), a national non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to the support, education and communication for thyroid cancer survivors, families and friends.  They have donated brochures and other information for us to distribute at the event.

While I was on my latest medical trip to Baltimore, Co-Captain Jennifer Bridge has been a very busy lady.  In addition to recruiting team members, getting donations and keeping up with her thyroid cancer survivor’s blog; she has been working on our team website, our team facebook page, and attended her first team captains meeting.  This lady seriously rocks!

This is a really kick ass start in our fight against cancer!

Our second week is all ready off to a great start with new team members joining and fundraising plans in the works.

On another note, please keep the following people in your thoughts and prayers this week:

Team member Angel McMellin.  She is currently prepping for radioactive iodine treatment and living with the joys of the Low Iodine Diet (LID) and being hypothyroid.  We pray for to find continued strength and energy in the days ahead.

Victoria.  An older lady I met this weekend who has a 3 cm tumor on her thyroid.  Even though her fine needle aspiration (FNA) came back clean, she will be having a partial thyroidectomy on January 26 – just four days after the birth of her first grandchild.

This is why we fight back.  These are the reasons that we relay!

Until next week…

Wings of Hope

Please visit Chris’s team page and donate what you can. I digress, every penny counts and is tremendously appreciated. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to email Chris.

As a community, we support and elevate each other because that’s how we roll, yo. When it comes to being there for each other — regardless of incident, every single person is there with unwavering love, laughter and support.

Chris Prestano is one of us, part of our Thyamily. She’s a thyroid cancer survivor racing for a cure. Of course, we all want to help her and support this great cause. The more funds we have for research, the quicker we can find a cure. Our thyroid cancer patients need us to rally!

After reading Chris’s note, I hope that we can all do as much as we can to help. We believe in Chris and we believe in each other as a community.

I had only been 28 for a few days when my life completely changed. As I sat in the ER discussing the three herniated discs in my neck with the doctor, I heard a knock at the door. That was when the doctors told me I had bigger problems ahead of me: the MRI showed a large growth on my thyroid.

I immediately knew it was cancer, but was dismissed by several doctors. I even had one endocrinologist laugh in my face and tell me that I was a hypochondriac. The next few months were a strange combination of life in slow motion and life in fast forward as I delved into researching the best hospitals, the best surgeons and the wonderful world of insurance policies.

Early one morning in September 2008, I made the 200-mile trip down to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, MD to meet with my potential surgeon. Even he suppressed a smirk when I told him it was cancer and to get the damn thing out, but he agreed to do a partial thyroidectomy to ease my mind. Two weeks later, I was in the cancer building preparing for surgery. I was supposed to have the pathology results in three days, but after weeks of constantly calling his office, I finally got a response. I needed to journey back to Baltimore to meet with the surgeon in person.

As he sat there and held my hand, tears welled up in his eyes. Yes, it was cancer. There was actually an additional tumor and the right half contained papillary carcinoma and papillary microcarcinoma. The left half needed to come out as soon as possible. So I spent last Thanksgiving scheduling my second surgery – two weeks before Christmas. My completion thyroidectomy found a third tumor and follicular thyroid cancer.

Then I was told that radioactive iodine treatment was absolutely necessary, which to me was the worst news I could hear. I had done enough research to know that high doses of RAI-131 can cause fertility problems. My New Year was spent discussing options with doctors and specialists and fighting for my rights to have a family of my own someday. In January 2009, I traveled back to Baltimore to go through with the RAI. I cried when the nuclear medicine specialist held my hand and told me they were giving me the maximum dose that was proven to not effect fertility. Well, I knew what that meant: it might also not be enough to kill the remaining cancer.

Next, my marriage of less than a year started to fall apart. And then the thyroid hormones started to complicate my diabetes. And I spent nine months praying every day that I had made the right decision and that this Thanksgiving, I would be told I was in remission – one year to the day after they diagnosed me.

So just a few weeks ago, I traveled to Baltimore yet again for a third surgery and a RAI-123 body scan. I am sad to say that I am NOT in remission this holiday season and there is nothing else conventional medicine can do for me. I was told to sit and wait six months and we’ll test again. There is still cancer hiding somewhere in my body but they don’t know where, so I will keep repeating these tests until the cancer reappears into something treatable. Yes, this may never happen, but I was never supposed to have cancer in the first place.

Now I am exploring alternative and holistic methods to cure cancer. I refuse to be a sitting duck, waiting for cancer to rear it’s ugly head again.

But my journey hasn’t been all bad. Yes, I’m a 29 year-old diabetic cancer patient going through a divorce. However, I have met some amazing people during this time: other thyroid cancer survivors, breast cancer survivors, pancreatic cancer patients, and the loved ones left behind by this devastatingly evil disease. With the power of the internet, I have formed a network of supporters, experts, and humor (thank you dearthyroid.com). This network gets me through each day, calms me when I’m upset, and picks me up when I’m feeling blue.

With the help of two other thyroid cancer survivors, we have formed the Wings of Hope team to participate in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life at (you guessed it) Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore on April 16, 2010 – one month before my next round of testing. This is a 24-hour event including a walking relay and camp out for anyone whose life has been effected by cancer.

But we can’t do this alone. We need more team members and donations to meet our fundraising goals. We need to borrow sleeping bags and tents. We need butterfly decorations donated for our camp site.

So please help us anyway you can, even if it is just passing this information on to others.

Please visit Chris’s team page and donate what you can. Every penny counts and is tremendously appreciated. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to email Chris.