Moving forward

Not many posts lately.... I'm in a sortof netherworld of waiting. I've been fighting with Kaiser to get a straight answer as to whether I can get a second opinion outside of my plan, and now I'm not even sure I'm going to bother. At least I finally got some sort of assurance that yes, I CAN see whomever I please (thank you!), but it'll take a few weeks to secure an appointment with the folks I'm thinking of (at UCSF) and I really don't know about waiting that long. As it is now, I have an appointment tomorrow with a lady endocrinologist, with Kaiser. I'm not sure if a second biopsy is in order for tomorrow - probably not. But I will discuss that option, and whether there's any likelihood that my first biopsy could have been a false positive. That's almost too miraculous to hope for, but it needs to be considered - I don't want them hacking open my neck just to realize "Ooops, our bad, not cancer. Enjoy life with half a thyroid!"
I do have a surgery date, but since I'm in a vague state of semi-denial I haven't really told anyone yet, so I'm not announcing dates on my blog yet. But it's so weird to get a letter in the mail from Kaiser that says, essentially, "Hi, your surgery is happening on this date. You're meeting with the anesthesiologist on this [earlier] date. You'll be owing us this much money."

As to how I'm feeling about it all, every day is different. It's basically living with a feeling of overwhelming suspense. I can't let it get to me all the time, but it definitely seeps in. I'll wake up in the morning thinking about life after surgery. I'll be daydreaming and catch myself thinking about all the stuff that could go wrong. But then sometimes I'll feel great, and think that it's not such a big deal. I'm finally getting my head back in the game at work, which is a great feeling. I'm realizing how much I've put on the back burner as I basically freaked out in waves over the past month. Now I'm gritting my teeth and getting on with it, and that feels good. But it's perfectly likely that tomorrow or the next day I'll be petrified again. This is all so dumb, I just can't wait for the scary parts to be over so I can get thru to the other side and see what I really am dealing with - and not just worry about what might happen.