For those of you interested in the cancer differential, hold your nose and watch the PBS documentary “The Truth About Cancer.” Its available online.
It was made, in part, to counter the Komen/Livestrong fueled mentality that if you fight hard enough and don’t give up you can beat the odds. The bottom line is that if cancer is metastatic when found it’s going to kill 9 out of 10 within 5 years.
An oncologist also makes the point that Lance Armstrong got lucky - as lucky as you can be with cancer anyway - in that testicular cancer is one of the only types of cancer that responds very well to chemo even after its spread to distant organs.
After my thyroid was removed due to cancer, my endocrinologist told me that many endos were considering that thyroids may not necessarily have to be removed. He explained that autopsies of many people who have passed on for other reasons also had thyroid cancer that went unnoticed.
However, Judge Reinquist died from thyroid cancer. When I learned of the “abnormal” cells in mine, there was no way in hell I’d of considering not having it removed. Ironically, half of it has to be removed and tested before confirming the cancer, and if there, the likelihood of the other half having it is high, which mine did.