May 31, 2022 • 35 mins
"And it was like one of those moments where your heart just drops to your feet and you're left standing there with this information. All I could think was, 'Get it out of me... now. Get it out of my body today.'"
In January of 2017, I had just filed for my divorce and went live on Facebook to sing a message of hope. My video caught the eye of a complete stranger, who also just happened to be a nurse. The lump she saw on my throat prompted her to send me a DM voicing her concern.
It turned out to be cancer.
On this episode, I invite you to walk with me as I share my journey from DM to diagnosis and how I learned through this trial that in the end, the body truly does keep the score.
**You can watch that Facebook Live from January 2017 here.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
and it was like one of those moments where your heart just drops to your feet and you're left standing there with this information and all I could think was get it out of me now,
Get it out of my body like today.
(00:22):
Mhm Hello and welcome.
My name is Shelley Simonson.
I'm a mom,
a four and a fitness and wellness coach with over two decades in the industry.
I'm a trauma and cancer survivor,
living my life now on a mission to help you reclaim your voice,
stand in your power and build the confidence to not simply survive this life,
(00:46):
but to thrive and create the life you know,
is waiting for you.
It's time to get out of your own way and be her now.
Hello,
my friends,
Welcome back to the podcast.
Thank you for being here for episode three.
I'm just having a blast.
(01:07):
I hope you're enjoying it.
I so appreciate you continuing to listen and to write your reviews and to share with your friends.
It all means so,
so much to me.
This week was the five year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis,
May 25 to be exact,
which coincidentally is World Thyroid Day.
(01:31):
So that was pretty crazy the way that I was tipped off that there might actually be a problem.
Was pretty weird,
pretty crazy.
I was recording a video,
I was live on facebook singing,
which is not completely unlike me and I received a message from a complete stranger who was not a facebook friend.
(01:57):
So the message ended up going to a different folder.
So I didn't actually see it for probably a week.
And she said I'm sorry if this sounds forward.
I know that we don't know each other.
We have a mutual friend,
I'm a nurse.
I was watching your video,
I noticed a lump in your throat and I just wonder if you've ever had your thyroid checked and in that moment I just kind of stopped in my tracks.
(02:27):
I put my hand to my neck.
I ran to the bathroom to look,
I googled immediately googled how to check your thyroid and it said take a sip of water,
look up and watch yourself swallowing and watch your throat.
(02:49):
And so I did that.
And lo and behold I could see it.
And now mind you,
I'll link the video to that facebook live that I did.
I'll link that in the show notes so that you can see how completely obvious this lump was in my neck.
(03:09):
How I never noticed it.
How nobody else ever noticed it is completely beyond me.
How much longer I would have gone on living with that if I hadn't gotten this message,
I have no idea.
But uh so when I when I did the swallow test I I saw this lump and I thought well that's just my adam's apple.
(03:32):
Do women even have like a prominent adam's apple?
I don't know that's what I thought it was and then I just thought to myself,
who is this woman who as a total stranger,
how do you just message somebody out of the blue and drop that on them.
So I was scared.
(03:52):
I was angry and it was probably,
I probably waited I think another week before I even called my doctor.
So mind you,
this was I probably got that message in february or March and I was in the middle of my divorce and there's no way that this could be happening also.
(04:23):
So I finally get up the courage to call my doctor and they bring me in,
you know,
of course it's not instantaneous.
I wait a while before I can get in for my appointment and they do the exam and later on I find out has anybody ever checked your thyroid before and that,
(04:45):
you know,
she was standing behind me and she had her fingertips on my neck and just feeling my neck and pushing on my neck.
I never remember having that checked before.
But other people would tell me,
yeah,
my OBGYN does that at all my visits or my my annual physical,
they do that.
(05:05):
I had never had that done.
So she said,
yeah,
I feel a little something there.
Let's go ahead and get you scheduled for an ultrasound.
So I did that.
And you know,
that took another,
I feel like it was a couple of weeks before I could get in for that.
And if you've ever had an ultrasound,
uh you know,
you just kind of lay there and they run this this wand thing over the area and there's not a lot of talking and it's super quiet.
(05:35):
And then she stops for a second she starts typing something in and then she'll say turn your head to the right and then she's kind of moving it smoothly along my neck and then she would stop and pause for a minute and just move it just a little bit around a certain area and then she would stop and she would type something up and the whole time I'm thinking tell me what you see what's going on,
(05:58):
what is it?
And of course they can't say anything.
So I go through that whole procedure and the results come back and they say yeah there's a little something there,
let's go ahead and get you in for a biopsy.
So I make another appointment all this time.
(06:18):
Mind you I've told nobody,
I've told my best friends and my parents.
And I remember just the way that I told my parents and it was just like yeah I've got like this little thing on my neck.
I'm just going to go in and have it checked out.
Meanwhile over this course of events of all these appointments.
(06:38):
You know I'm just feeling more and more scared and just uncertain and Googling you know web MD myself and which is horrible and coming to all my own medical diagnoses on my own which I don't recommend at all.
So I go in for the biopsy and again,
(07:00):
another couple weeks had passed.
And that biopsy hurt more than the actual removal of my thyroid.
I mean I laid there on the table,
they tilted my chin up and I felt like she was trying to shove that syringe through my throat to the table.
(07:27):
Just the pressure.
It was it was so painful.
It was more painful than the actual procedure which I was knocked out for anyway,
but more painful than the recovery from that.
So,
I remember talking to the doctor at the time of the biopsy and there were two doctors and the male doctor kind of alluded to what he thought it might be.
(07:51):
And I remember thinking,
yeah,
that sounds familiar like I was doing my research.
And Um there are three maybe 4 types of thyroid cancer.
And I remember reading and I remember the doctor even telling me like kind of almost playing it off.
(08:12):
Like if you're going to get a cancer,
thyroid cancer is the best to get.
Which didn't make me feel any better at all.
And then if you're going to get thyroid cancer,
papillary thyroid cancer is the best of the worst.
If you will.
None of that set my mind at ease at all because cancer is cancer.
(08:36):
And as I'm going through a divorce.
And as I'm like,
seeing like my my life flashed before my eyes and not having any clue what my future is going to look like it was no consolation for me to hear if you're going to get a cancer.
(08:57):
This one's the best one to get.
So without diagnosing me at the time because he couldn't do that until he got the results.
He just kind of said this is my suspicion.
So I took that and ran with it and I got my hands on any book that I could read about it,
anything that I could learn about it I did.
(09:22):
And so when the when the results came back I knew that they would be a couple of days.
And I was expecting to hear from my doctor.
Well one night I'm in the bathroom giving my son who would have been 3.5 years old at the time giving him a bath And it's about 8:00 at night.
(09:49):
And I'm checking my email on my phone and I get this email from Kaiser and I don't know if I was supposed to actually get that email because it was my biopsy results.
I really don't think that was supposed to have happened.
And now I opened this email and I don't have any medical experience.
(10:13):
But I did work for a dermatologist for four years in my early twenties.
So I I knew the A.
B.
C.
D.
S of cancer or the A.
B.
CS um for skin cancer.
Anyway,
how that translates into other types of cancer.
I don't know.
But I just knew that when I saw words like micro calcifications and irregular borders,
(10:35):
I knew that that was not good.
And at the very bottom of the email it said this is a red dot case.
I have no idea what that meant.
You just see the word red red dot.
I thought red flag and I've got like this going off in my head like this alarm And it's 8:00 at night and I'm watching my three year old just completely oblivious,
(11:04):
just splashing and playing and carefree in the tub,
no clue what I had been going through for the past couple of months,
no clue what was on the road ahead of him with his dad and I divorcing and I was just numb.
I'm just sitting there in the bathroom.
(11:24):
I can't do anything about it in that moment but pray.
And so I called and I left a message and I did get a call back the next day and I got the call,
I took the call outside and I was standing in my driveway.
I just remember it was warm.
(11:45):
I'm like barefoot walking up and down my driveway keeping an eye inside watching through the windows watching the kids and just on this phone call where the doctor was and it was a different doctor.
It was like somebody just read my chart and said,
can you give her a call back.
That's how it really felt.
This whole process just was unfortunate string of events the way that it all happened and he just was very matter of fact about it.
(12:15):
Like as if he had done this already five times that day and he he said cancer,
like it was official at that point.
And it was just so I felt it was so callous and it was like one of those moments where your heart just drops to your feet and you're left standing there with this information and all I could think was get it out of me now,
(12:53):
get it out of my body.
Like today,
cut me open,
do whatever you need to do,
but take it out of my body.
I I o and also on the email,
it said That it was three cm which I believe is almost an inch three centimeters.
(13:16):
Which if you hold up your fingers like an inch size and imagine that on my throat you would have seen that lump.
I have no idea how I didn't notice it.
It's just crazy.
So I'm like going through all these thoughts like,
oh my gosh,
how long has it been there to have grown to this size?
(13:38):
How soon can you get me in?
I don't want this cancer in my body for one second longer.
And that was May 25th.
And to give you some context,
the date of my thyroidectomy was july sixth.
(13:59):
So I lived with this inside my body For another six weeks.
I didn't tell my kids.
I hadn't even told them about the divorce yet.
I told my parents,
(14:20):
I told my best friends and when it came time to tell the kids,
I told them that I had some germs in my thyroid and I showed them where my thyroid was and told them that I would be going to the dr they would take it out and I'd be okay and I would be home.
Well a thyroidectomy is technically it's an outpatient procedure.
(14:46):
So it should be a very simple procedure depending on how many lymph nodes are affected.
And they don't know that until they go in.
So they they open up your neck and that scar can be anywhere from.
I think mine's maybe,
(15:08):
I don't know,
inch and a half.
I've seen people cut from ear to ear once they go in and start removing the lymph nodes.
But it should be a simple outpatient procedure.
But see the thing was was that I was begging them to let me spend the night in the hospital.
(15:31):
I couldn't imagine having to go home in that vulnerable state trying to heal and recover immediately following the procedure.
Um in that home and with my husband at the time who you know at this point we are in the middle of a divorce,
Living separate lives.
I don't want him,
(15:52):
you know,
taking care of me.
I don't want the burden on my kids to be taken,
taking care of me.
And um my friends were amazing.
They put together a meal train and came over and,
and just helped me and help me with the kids and cleaning the house and stuff for a good period of time after the procedure.
But they did allow me to spend the night in the hospital.
(16:13):
So that helped a lot.
Um,
I couldn't,
I couldn't,
well,
I I lived,
you know,
those six weeks knowing what it was and not able to do anything about it.
six weeks of living with cancer knowing that they,
(16:36):
there wasn't even going to be a procedure for many weeks to come And I will tell you what,
in 2008 I decided that I really wanted to get to know God better And I did for a good solid 10 years.
(16:56):
I read my bible,
I went to church,
I read my daily devotionals,
I prayed,
but I was really going through the motions for a good solid 10 years of my life,
but it wasn't until 2017,
the year it all hit the fan that I kong to jesus because I was in the middle of losing my home,
(17:27):
my family,
my health,
the future as I knew it.
I had no clue what my life held for me and I had amazing earthly friends,
but there's when there's just this,
this longing inside of you for,
(17:50):
for calm and hope and peace that doesn't come from anything of this world,
nothing could give me that nothing.
And that is the year that my I grew so much in my relationship with jesus,
(18:20):
and this is going to sound super,
super weird,
maybe,
but I found this calmness just this contentment,
this,
this settling of my soul.
(18:41):
I felt this piece that I could never explain.
I felt like I'm in the middle of this raging hurricane of my life,
but at the same time unshaken,
like the peace that surpasses all understanding.
(19:02):
I had that,
and that was only God.
There's no other way to describe being able to go through these storms and just feel this sense of peace.
Like,
when you have no clue what your future holds or how you're going to get through this.
There's nothing to explain why I should have had that piece,
(19:27):
but God.
And so that was the year that I just,
kind of,
and gave it all to him,
just dove headfirst into seeking him more and,
and just surrendering.
(19:51):
So,
through that time,
um,
it was The summer of 2017,
and this is going to probably sound crazy,
but I felt this,
(20:12):
I felt special.
I felt chosen.
I felt like I was selected for this meaning,
it could have been so much worse.
I acknowledge that it could have,
(20:34):
my diagnosis could have been horrible,
my prognosis could have been horrible.
But what I was given was a a wake up call,
an opportunity and I felt hand picked.
(21:00):
I felt like it was God saying,
this is going to shake you up,
but it's not going to take you down,
and it is going to be used to give hope and encouragement and support to others who are going through this.
And,
(21:20):
you know,
people will say,
God won't give you more than you can handle.
And I think that's bs he absolutely will,
because he knows that the only way that you can handle it is by relying on him more,
and that's exactly what happened.
There's no way I could have gotten through that without him.
(21:41):
It was definitely more than I could handle on my own.
100%.
But I felt like it was my assignment.
I felt like it was given to me so that I could show others that it could be done,
and that through through all of that if I had to go through the hell of of that year two,
(22:12):
get to the other side and be who I am today and have the life that I have today.
I do it a million times without a doubt.
So,
I eventually,
um,
I told my kids about it only after I had the procedure.
(22:37):
Only after I knew that they had gotten it all did I say the c word I had joined some facebook support groups for thyroid cancer.
I just wanted to be around people who understood it.
I wanted to be around other moms who were going through it,
(22:57):
who had young kids who were uncertain about their future.
And so I joined all these groups and you know,
again,
the well intentioned,
well meaning people and I was kind of a lurker in the group,
just reading all the things and,
and just kind of in the background.
(23:21):
And I remember the day that I left them all as well.
And it was the day that I made my first post in one of the groups.
And I shared about my story and I shared about my family and my diagnosis and my fears.
(23:43):
And I remember one woman commenting something along the lines of You got the good one you're going to be fine.
It won't shorten your life expectancy that much.
(24:03):
And as I even say that out loud right now,
my jaw is just hanging like what?
How,
what I just,
I thought,
oh my gosh,
I don't know if you love your life or not or if you have anything to live for,
(24:28):
but every second of my life matters if if my life is shortened by one day because of this,
that is one day too much.
So I left the groups,
I I I had my thyroid removed.
(24:52):
I um did you know everything that I was supposed to do to heal to try and get my medication right,
which I had always heard was even harder process than than the actual diagnosis and the removal.
It's like years of just fidgeting with your dosage and trying to make sure that it's all working well.
(25:18):
And I didn't realize how much the thyroid controls in your body.
I had no clue.
It regulates your metabolism,
your body temperature,
your energy.
So,
so many systems of your body rely on your thyroid and when your thyroid is gone,
(25:38):
all they can do is give you a medication that mimics the what your thyroid put out.
And that is a process of fine tuning that over and over and over again.
And so every morning I have to take my little thyroid pill first thing in the morning and wait 30 minutes before I can have my coffee or before I can have anything to eat.
(26:05):
And if I don't take that thyroid pill,
I could die which to think that I'm reliant upon this medication for the rest of my life to survive.
That's that.
I don't think a lot about it.
But I thought about it once when my luggage was lost and after I came home from a cruise,
(26:31):
I had packed my my pills in my luggage instead of my carry on lesson learned.
But I went without it for like three days because it was supposed to be here,
it was supposed to be here the next day,
was supposed to be here.
So I didn't request a refill and I went like three days and you just feel your body like just shutting down.
It was crazy scary aside from that I don't live in fear.
(26:58):
I don't I go in for blood work.
I go in for ultrasounds every year.
I have to have my blood work like every six months where they can tell by just a decimal point if I have any regrowth and I don't live in fear of that.
(27:20):
I don't live in anticipation of that next doctor's appointment that next blood work.
I just don't,
you know,
they say if you might have heard people say that when you receive that cancer diagnosis,
it it's it's the best thing that ever happened to you,
some people will say that and I never understood that that didn't make any sense to me.
(27:46):
But I will tell you that when you are faced with the unknown and I was for six weeks waiting for that procedure to remove it.
Nothing mattered.
But being present with my kids,
(28:10):
nothing.
The dishes didn't matter.
The laundry didn't matter.
My hair didn't matter.
I mean I still bathed and took care of myself but the things in this world that we think matter when you're faced with a diagnosis like that nothing matters.
(28:36):
And in an instant when I when I got that clean bill of health That they had gotten all the cancer and they took like 12 lymph nodes with it.
That for me was like a new lease on life and all of a sudden colors were more vivid,
(29:04):
the sky was more blue,
the clouds were puffy er the flowers were more beautiful mountains,
sunsets,
things that we drive past every day,
you know,
just my kids sitting in front of me looking me in the eyes,
(29:29):
me touching their skin,
my relationships,
that was what mattered and I have to I have to remind myself of that still sometimes because that was the best gift that I could have gotten through.
(29:57):
That was just this awareness of the gift of life,
the gift of my eyes opening every morning and breath in my lungs.
The gift of having another day.
That might sound cliche to you because it's everywhere.
(30:18):
But if you've lived through something like this,
you will get it and I pray that you don't have to in order to start to live your life that way I eventually reached back out to the lady who had sent me the private message and I told her the whole story and we got together and had coffee and I got to meet her newborn grand baby that she brought with her and it was such a special time to meet somebody that had such a pivotal part in this big piece of your life.
(30:58):
I call her my angel,
her name is Karen and I just wonder where would I be if she hadn't had the courage to reach out because at that point with it being a slow growing cancer.
I imagine it had maybe been growing for a decade.
I don't really know.
(31:20):
But I just thank God for Karen about a year later after I had moved out,
I was a single mom.
I was recovering.
It was still kind of this newness of getting to know my new body and my new energy and my new abilities.
(31:43):
Mm hmm.
And I was talking to a mentor of mine at the time who said something like Shelly,
give yourself some grace.
You know,
you've been through so much in the past couple of years.
Just stop,
take a breath and acknowledge how far you've come.
You're here,
(32:04):
you're showing up.
And it was that same person.
The only person who has ever said anything to me about the correlation between my cancer and my emotional health.
In a sense of the fact that it was in my thyroid in my neck,
(32:31):
my throat area where for a decade my voice had been muted.
I lost my ability to speak up to stand up for myself and my kids to speak my mind to voice my opinions and our bodies are so smart whether or not this is true or whether or not you believe it or its scientific or not.
(33:01):
My body had been storing so much internally that I wasn't letting out.
And it literally got stopped up right at my throat.
Just think about that for a bit.
(33:24):
My goal.
My mission.
My purpose is that I don't want to see women suffering the way that I did.
We all have a unique purpose that we were made for.
And I don't want to see one more woman's voice muted.
(33:45):
I don't want to see a woman question her worth or her ability to stand up for herself because our body keeps the score.
(34:06):
And so I'll just leave you with this.
Don't ever let anybody mute.
You don't ever let anybody keep you quiet,
keep you hidden,
keep you small.
(34:28):
Don't ever let anybody make you shrink away from who you know,
you were born to be.
Your health depends on it.
Thank you so much for listening today.
If you're loving what you're hearing and you know,
somebody who could benefit from this episode,
(34:50):
please spread the love and share this with them and I would be so grateful if you could take a moment to write a quick review wherever you're listening,
your feedback really matters to me.
And don't forget to tag me on social media at Shelley Simmons and Fitness on instagram and share your favorite takeaway.
Learn more about how you can get in touch with me in the show notes.
and it was like one of those moments where your heart just drops to your feet and you're left standing there with this information and all I could think was get it out of me now,
Get it out of my body like today.
(00:22):
Mhm Hello and welcome.
My name is Shelley Simonson.
I'm a mom,
a four and a fitness and wellness coach with over two decades in the industry.
I'm a trauma and cancer survivor,
living my life now on a mission to help you reclaim your voice,
stand in your power and build the confidence to not simply survive this life,
(00:46):
but to thrive and create the life you know,
is waiting for you.
It's time to get out of your own way and be her now.
Hello,
my friends,
Welcome back to the podcast.
Thank you for being here for episode three.
I'm just having a blast.
(01:07):
I hope you're enjoying it.
I so appreciate you continuing to listen and to write your reviews and to share with your friends.
It all means so,
so much to me.
This week was the five year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis,
May 25 to be exact,
which coincidentally is World Thyroid Day.
(01:31):
So that was pretty crazy the way that I was tipped off that there might actually be a problem.
Was pretty weird,
pretty crazy.
I was recording a video,
I was live on facebook singing,
which is not completely unlike me and I received a message from a complete stranger who was not a facebook friend.
(01:57):
So the message ended up going to a different folder.
So I didn't actually see it for probably a week.
And she said I'm sorry if this sounds forward.
I know that we don't know each other.
We have a mutual friend,
I'm a nurse.
I was watching your video,
I noticed a lump in your throat and I just wonder if you've ever had your thyroid checked and in that moment I just kind of stopped in my tracks.
(02:27):
I put my hand to my neck.
I ran to the bathroom to look,
I googled immediately googled how to check your thyroid and it said take a sip of water,
look up and watch yourself swallowing and watch your throat.
(02:49):
And so I did that.
And lo and behold I could see it.
And now mind you,
I'll link the video to that facebook live that I did.
I'll link that in the show notes so that you can see how completely obvious this lump was in my neck.
(03:09):
How I never noticed it.
How nobody else ever noticed it is completely beyond me.
How much longer I would have gone on living with that if I hadn't gotten this message,
I have no idea.
But uh so when I when I did the swallow test I I saw this lump and I thought well that's just my adam's apple.
(03:32):
Do women even have like a prominent adam's apple?
I don't know that's what I thought it was and then I just thought to myself,
who is this woman who as a total stranger,
how do you just message somebody out of the blue and drop that on them.
So I was scared.
(03:52):
I was angry and it was probably,
I probably waited I think another week before I even called my doctor.
So mind you,
this was I probably got that message in february or March and I was in the middle of my divorce and there's no way that this could be happening also.
(04:23):
So I finally get up the courage to call my doctor and they bring me in,
you know,
of course it's not instantaneous.
I wait a while before I can get in for my appointment and they do the exam and later on I find out has anybody ever checked your thyroid before and that,
(04:45):
you know,
she was standing behind me and she had her fingertips on my neck and just feeling my neck and pushing on my neck.
I never remember having that checked before.
But other people would tell me,
yeah,
my OBGYN does that at all my visits or my my annual physical,
they do that.
(05:05):
I had never had that done.
So she said,
yeah,
I feel a little something there.
Let's go ahead and get you scheduled for an ultrasound.
So I did that.
And you know,
that took another,
I feel like it was a couple of weeks before I could get in for that.
And if you've ever had an ultrasound,
uh you know,
you just kind of lay there and they run this this wand thing over the area and there's not a lot of talking and it's super quiet.
(05:35):
And then she stops for a second she starts typing something in and then she'll say turn your head to the right and then she's kind of moving it smoothly along my neck and then she would stop and pause for a minute and just move it just a little bit around a certain area and then she would stop and she would type something up and the whole time I'm thinking tell me what you see what's going on,
(05:58):
what is it?
And of course they can't say anything.
So I go through that whole procedure and the results come back and they say yeah there's a little something there,
let's go ahead and get you in for a biopsy.
So I make another appointment all this time.
(06:18):
Mind you I've told nobody,
I've told my best friends and my parents.
And I remember just the way that I told my parents and it was just like yeah I've got like this little thing on my neck.
I'm just going to go in and have it checked out.
Meanwhile over this course of events of all these appointments.
(06:38):
You know I'm just feeling more and more scared and just uncertain and Googling you know web MD myself and which is horrible and coming to all my own medical diagnoses on my own which I don't recommend at all.
So I go in for the biopsy and again,
(07:00):
another couple weeks had passed.
And that biopsy hurt more than the actual removal of my thyroid.
I mean I laid there on the table,
they tilted my chin up and I felt like she was trying to shove that syringe through my throat to the table.
(07:27):
Just the pressure.
It was it was so painful.
It was more painful than the actual procedure which I was knocked out for anyway,
but more painful than the recovery from that.
So,
I remember talking to the doctor at the time of the biopsy and there were two doctors and the male doctor kind of alluded to what he thought it might be.
(07:51):
And I remember thinking,
yeah,
that sounds familiar like I was doing my research.
And Um there are three maybe 4 types of thyroid cancer.
And I remember reading and I remember the doctor even telling me like kind of almost playing it off.
(08:12):
Like if you're going to get a cancer,
thyroid cancer is the best to get.
Which didn't make me feel any better at all.
And then if you're going to get thyroid cancer,
papillary thyroid cancer is the best of the worst.
If you will.
None of that set my mind at ease at all because cancer is cancer.
(08:36):
And as I'm going through a divorce.
And as I'm like,
seeing like my my life flashed before my eyes and not having any clue what my future is going to look like it was no consolation for me to hear if you're going to get a cancer.
(08:57):
This one's the best one to get.
So without diagnosing me at the time because he couldn't do that until he got the results.
He just kind of said this is my suspicion.
So I took that and ran with it and I got my hands on any book that I could read about it,
anything that I could learn about it I did.
(09:22):
And so when the when the results came back I knew that they would be a couple of days.
And I was expecting to hear from my doctor.
Well one night I'm in the bathroom giving my son who would have been 3.5 years old at the time giving him a bath And it's about 8:00 at night.
(09:49):
And I'm checking my email on my phone and I get this email from Kaiser and I don't know if I was supposed to actually get that email because it was my biopsy results.
I really don't think that was supposed to have happened.
And now I opened this email and I don't have any medical experience.
(10:13):
But I did work for a dermatologist for four years in my early twenties.
So I I knew the A.
B.
C.
D.
S of cancer or the A.
B.
CS um for skin cancer.
Anyway,
how that translates into other types of cancer.
I don't know.
But I just knew that when I saw words like micro calcifications and irregular borders,
(10:35):
I knew that that was not good.
And at the very bottom of the email it said this is a red dot case.
I have no idea what that meant.
You just see the word red red dot.
I thought red flag and I've got like this going off in my head like this alarm And it's 8:00 at night and I'm watching my three year old just completely oblivious,
(11:04):
just splashing and playing and carefree in the tub,
no clue what I had been going through for the past couple of months,
no clue what was on the road ahead of him with his dad and I divorcing and I was just numb.
I'm just sitting there in the bathroom.
(11:24):
I can't do anything about it in that moment but pray.
And so I called and I left a message and I did get a call back the next day and I got the call,
I took the call outside and I was standing in my driveway.
I just remember it was warm.
(11:45):
I'm like barefoot walking up and down my driveway keeping an eye inside watching through the windows watching the kids and just on this phone call where the doctor was and it was a different doctor.
It was like somebody just read my chart and said,
can you give her a call back.
That's how it really felt.
This whole process just was unfortunate string of events the way that it all happened and he just was very matter of fact about it.
(12:15):
Like as if he had done this already five times that day and he he said cancer,
like it was official at that point.
And it was just so I felt it was so callous and it was like one of those moments where your heart just drops to your feet and you're left standing there with this information and all I could think was get it out of me now,
(12:53):
get it out of my body.
Like today,
cut me open,
do whatever you need to do,
but take it out of my body.
I I o and also on the email,
it said That it was three cm which I believe is almost an inch three centimeters.
(13:16):
Which if you hold up your fingers like an inch size and imagine that on my throat you would have seen that lump.
I have no idea how I didn't notice it.
It's just crazy.
So I'm like going through all these thoughts like,
oh my gosh,
how long has it been there to have grown to this size?
(13:38):
How soon can you get me in?
I don't want this cancer in my body for one second longer.
And that was May 25th.
And to give you some context,
the date of my thyroidectomy was july sixth.
(13:59):
So I lived with this inside my body For another six weeks.
I didn't tell my kids.
I hadn't even told them about the divorce yet.
I told my parents,
(14:20):
I told my best friends and when it came time to tell the kids,
I told them that I had some germs in my thyroid and I showed them where my thyroid was and told them that I would be going to the dr they would take it out and I'd be okay and I would be home.
Well a thyroidectomy is technically it's an outpatient procedure.
(14:46):
So it should be a very simple procedure depending on how many lymph nodes are affected.
And they don't know that until they go in.
So they they open up your neck and that scar can be anywhere from.
I think mine's maybe,
(15:08):
I don't know,
inch and a half.
I've seen people cut from ear to ear once they go in and start removing the lymph nodes.
But it should be a simple outpatient procedure.
But see the thing was was that I was begging them to let me spend the night in the hospital.
(15:31):
I couldn't imagine having to go home in that vulnerable state trying to heal and recover immediately following the procedure.
Um in that home and with my husband at the time who you know at this point we are in the middle of a divorce,
Living separate lives.
I don't want him,
(15:52):
you know,
taking care of me.
I don't want the burden on my kids to be taken,
taking care of me.
And um my friends were amazing.
They put together a meal train and came over and,
and just helped me and help me with the kids and cleaning the house and stuff for a good period of time after the procedure.
But they did allow me to spend the night in the hospital.
(16:13):
So that helped a lot.
Um,
I couldn't,
I couldn't,
well,
I I lived,
you know,
those six weeks knowing what it was and not able to do anything about it.
six weeks of living with cancer knowing that they,
(16:36):
there wasn't even going to be a procedure for many weeks to come And I will tell you what,
in 2008 I decided that I really wanted to get to know God better And I did for a good solid 10 years.
(16:56):
I read my bible,
I went to church,
I read my daily devotionals,
I prayed,
but I was really going through the motions for a good solid 10 years of my life,
but it wasn't until 2017,
the year it all hit the fan that I kong to jesus because I was in the middle of losing my home,
(17:27):
my family,
my health,
the future as I knew it.
I had no clue what my life held for me and I had amazing earthly friends,
but there's when there's just this,
this longing inside of you for,
(17:50):
for calm and hope and peace that doesn't come from anything of this world,
nothing could give me that nothing.
And that is the year that my I grew so much in my relationship with jesus,
(18:20):
and this is going to sound super,
super weird,
maybe,
but I found this calmness just this contentment,
this,
this settling of my soul.
(18:41):
I felt this piece that I could never explain.
I felt like I'm in the middle of this raging hurricane of my life,
but at the same time unshaken,
like the peace that surpasses all understanding.
(19:02):
I had that,
and that was only God.
There's no other way to describe being able to go through these storms and just feel this sense of peace.
Like,
when you have no clue what your future holds or how you're going to get through this.
There's nothing to explain why I should have had that piece,
(19:27):
but God.
And so that was the year that I just,
kind of,
and gave it all to him,
just dove headfirst into seeking him more and,
and just surrendering.
(19:51):
So,
through that time,
um,
it was The summer of 2017,
and this is going to probably sound crazy,
but I felt this,
(20:12):
I felt special.
I felt chosen.
I felt like I was selected for this meaning,
it could have been so much worse.
I acknowledge that it could have,
(20:34):
my diagnosis could have been horrible,
my prognosis could have been horrible.
But what I was given was a a wake up call,
an opportunity and I felt hand picked.
(21:00):
I felt like it was God saying,
this is going to shake you up,
but it's not going to take you down,
and it is going to be used to give hope and encouragement and support to others who are going through this.
And,
(21:20):
you know,
people will say,
God won't give you more than you can handle.
And I think that's bs he absolutely will,
because he knows that the only way that you can handle it is by relying on him more,
and that's exactly what happened.
There's no way I could have gotten through that without him.
(21:41):
It was definitely more than I could handle on my own.
100%.
But I felt like it was my assignment.
I felt like it was given to me so that I could show others that it could be done,
and that through through all of that if I had to go through the hell of of that year two,
(22:12):
get to the other side and be who I am today and have the life that I have today.
I do it a million times without a doubt.
So,
I eventually,
um,
I told my kids about it only after I had the procedure.
(22:37):
Only after I knew that they had gotten it all did I say the c word I had joined some facebook support groups for thyroid cancer.
I just wanted to be around people who understood it.
I wanted to be around other moms who were going through it,
(22:57):
who had young kids who were uncertain about their future.
And so I joined all these groups and you know,
again,
the well intentioned,
well meaning people and I was kind of a lurker in the group,
just reading all the things and,
and just kind of in the background.
(23:21):
And I remember the day that I left them all as well.
And it was the day that I made my first post in one of the groups.
And I shared about my story and I shared about my family and my diagnosis and my fears.
(23:43):
And I remember one woman commenting something along the lines of You got the good one you're going to be fine.
It won't shorten your life expectancy that much.
(24:03):
And as I even say that out loud right now,
my jaw is just hanging like what?
How,
what I just,
I thought,
oh my gosh,
I don't know if you love your life or not or if you have anything to live for,
(24:28):
but every second of my life matters if if my life is shortened by one day because of this,
that is one day too much.
So I left the groups,
I I I had my thyroid removed.
(24:52):
I um did you know everything that I was supposed to do to heal to try and get my medication right,
which I had always heard was even harder process than than the actual diagnosis and the removal.
It's like years of just fidgeting with your dosage and trying to make sure that it's all working well.
(25:18):
And I didn't realize how much the thyroid controls in your body.
I had no clue.
It regulates your metabolism,
your body temperature,
your energy.
So,
so many systems of your body rely on your thyroid and when your thyroid is gone,
(25:38):
all they can do is give you a medication that mimics the what your thyroid put out.
And that is a process of fine tuning that over and over and over again.
And so every morning I have to take my little thyroid pill first thing in the morning and wait 30 minutes before I can have my coffee or before I can have anything to eat.
(26:05):
And if I don't take that thyroid pill,
I could die which to think that I'm reliant upon this medication for the rest of my life to survive.
That's that.
I don't think a lot about it.
But I thought about it once when my luggage was lost and after I came home from a cruise,
(26:31):
I had packed my my pills in my luggage instead of my carry on lesson learned.
But I went without it for like three days because it was supposed to be here,
it was supposed to be here the next day,
was supposed to be here.
So I didn't request a refill and I went like three days and you just feel your body like just shutting down.
It was crazy scary aside from that I don't live in fear.
(26:58):
I don't I go in for blood work.
I go in for ultrasounds every year.
I have to have my blood work like every six months where they can tell by just a decimal point if I have any regrowth and I don't live in fear of that.
(27:20):
I don't live in anticipation of that next doctor's appointment that next blood work.
I just don't,
you know,
they say if you might have heard people say that when you receive that cancer diagnosis,
it it's it's the best thing that ever happened to you,
some people will say that and I never understood that that didn't make any sense to me.
(27:46):
But I will tell you that when you are faced with the unknown and I was for six weeks waiting for that procedure to remove it.
Nothing mattered.
But being present with my kids,
(28:10):
nothing.
The dishes didn't matter.
The laundry didn't matter.
My hair didn't matter.
I mean I still bathed and took care of myself but the things in this world that we think matter when you're faced with a diagnosis like that nothing matters.
(28:36):
And in an instant when I when I got that clean bill of health That they had gotten all the cancer and they took like 12 lymph nodes with it.
That for me was like a new lease on life and all of a sudden colors were more vivid,
(29:04):
the sky was more blue,
the clouds were puffy er the flowers were more beautiful mountains,
sunsets,
things that we drive past every day,
you know,
just my kids sitting in front of me looking me in the eyes,
(29:29):
me touching their skin,
my relationships,
that was what mattered and I have to I have to remind myself of that still sometimes because that was the best gift that I could have gotten through.
(29:57):
That was just this awareness of the gift of life,
the gift of my eyes opening every morning and breath in my lungs.
The gift of having another day.
That might sound cliche to you because it's everywhere.
(30:18):
But if you've lived through something like this,
you will get it and I pray that you don't have to in order to start to live your life that way I eventually reached back out to the lady who had sent me the private message and I told her the whole story and we got together and had coffee and I got to meet her newborn grand baby that she brought with her and it was such a special time to meet somebody that had such a pivotal part in this big piece of your life.
(30:58):
I call her my angel,
her name is Karen and I just wonder where would I be if she hadn't had the courage to reach out because at that point with it being a slow growing cancer.
I imagine it had maybe been growing for a decade.
I don't really know.
(31:20):
But I just thank God for Karen about a year later after I had moved out,
I was a single mom.
I was recovering.
It was still kind of this newness of getting to know my new body and my new energy and my new abilities.
(31:43):
Mm hmm.
And I was talking to a mentor of mine at the time who said something like Shelly,
give yourself some grace.
You know,
you've been through so much in the past couple of years.
Just stop,
take a breath and acknowledge how far you've come.
You're here,
(32:04):
you're showing up.
And it was that same person.
The only person who has ever said anything to me about the correlation between my cancer and my emotional health.
In a sense of the fact that it was in my thyroid in my neck,
(32:31):
my throat area where for a decade my voice had been muted.
I lost my ability to speak up to stand up for myself and my kids to speak my mind to voice my opinions and our bodies are so smart whether or not this is true or whether or not you believe it or its scientific or not.
(33:01):
My body had been storing so much internally that I wasn't letting out.
And it literally got stopped up right at my throat.
Just think about that for a bit.
(33:24):
My goal.
My mission.
My purpose is that I don't want to see women suffering the way that I did.
We all have a unique purpose that we were made for.
And I don't want to see one more woman's voice muted.
(33:45):
I don't want to see a woman question her worth or her ability to stand up for herself because our body keeps the score.
(34:06):
And so I'll just leave you with this.
Don't ever let anybody mute.
You don't ever let anybody keep you quiet,
keep you hidden,
keep you small.
(34:28):
Don't ever let anybody make you shrink away from who you know,
you were born to be.
Your health depends on it.
Thank you so much for listening today.
If you're loving what you're hearing and you know,
somebody who could benefit from this episode,
(34:50):
please spread the love and share this with them and I would be so grateful if you could take a moment to write a quick review wherever you're listening,
your feedback really matters to me.
And don't forget to tag me on social media at Shelley Simmons and Fitness on instagram and share your favorite takeaway.
Learn more about how you can get in touch with me in the show notes.
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