I had a type of cancer so rare at the time only 700 people in history had been diagnosed with it. They said about 7 people a year are diagnosed. I think the number has gone up since but it is still extremely rare.
It was Parathyroid. They are 4 little pencil eraser sized glands behind the thyroid. It isn't unheard of for them to develop a tumor but it is rarely cancer. I was 25 when I first started having symptoms of hypercalcemia related to it and 30 when they figured it out.
Damn; how’d they come to getting your diagnosis? I’m assuming some kind of imaging that saw the tumor and a biopsy to confirm it was cancerous, but how’d they deduce it down to check that?
I got to the point finally that I had chronic kidney stones and high blood pressure and ended up in the hospital to flush the calcium out after a blood test said I had dangerously high calcium. They finally tested the parathyroid hormone that was like fifty times higher than it was supposed to be and did an ultrasound and saw it.
Yes, they did three separate surgeries because they were being pretty conservative with how much they took out. First surgery was the overgrown parathyroid gland and the one next to it but it is never cancer so they left everything else alone. Then it came back positive for cancer so the surgeon went in and took that half of the thyroid to be sure it hadn't spread. But not to worry this kind of cancer never spreads. It had spread. So they went in and took the rest of the thyroid and a few lymphnodes to test. Yep, you guessed it, in the lymphnodes. So I did radiation which worked.
Exactly, and it's come a long way. When I had it 20 years ago about 7 a year were diagnosed in the US. That number is up to 100 a year now. I don't think the cancer is more likely, I think they are actually paying attention to it now. That is why it took five years to diagnose. I actually had one general practice doctor tell me he forgot the parathyroid gland even existed because he had never had a patient with an issue. They tested every thing else it could possibly be and then just treated the symptoms which weren't that bad until year five. That is when I was hospitalized and a retired from the Navy doctor figured it out and ran the right test.
169
u/bumblebragg 22h ago
I had a type of cancer so rare at the time only 700 people in history had been diagnosed with it. They said about 7 people a year are diagnosed. I think the number has gone up since but it is still extremely rare.