TIME IS A SORT OF RIVER OF PASSING EVENTS, AND STRONG IS ITS CURRENT; NO SOONER IS A THING BROUGHT TO SIGHT THAN IT IS SWEPT BY AND ANOTHER TAKES ITS PLACE, AND THIS TOO WILL BE SWEPT AWAY.

MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATION iv.43

Last week I had a total thyroidectomy. It has taken me almost a whole week to get my energy back to almost normal but I am walking 2 miles every morning again (albeit slower than normal) and don't feel like I need to take a nap every couple of hours.

Today I saw my surgeon for my post-op appointment and it was an appointment filled with emotions as he told me that they found two nodules that had papillary carcinoma but that the good news was that they were very small, that they were removed, and that the cure rate for papillary carcinoma is about 98%. If you are going to get a cancer this might be the one you would pick. And, one of the "cures" was surgical removal. Done! I never wanted it but I am trying to "go with the flow" and look for the silver lining. Because I KNOW that there is a silver lining. In fact he said that because of their small size he would not even recommend that I do anything more as far as a follow-up treatment but that he would leave that up to my Endocrinologist and me to decide what course of action to take (or not). And so, life goes on.

My thoughts today are like the quote above: thoughts come to mind but are quickly swept away by another and another. I sunk in my chair when I heard the "C" word in his office but then I heard his voice telling me that we did exactly what we SHOULD have done: WE TOOK IT OUT! Now, that sounded GOOD. It was GONE. I feel relieved about that news. So, I received some bad news and some good news, in that order. It could have been the opposite way around.