Hi friends and family:
I pray you are safe and well. I have been feeling stagnant this week so I decided to create some new merch, with the help of a social media friend! I will find her website and link it here. 🙂
Please click here to check out my new shirt! I am so excited to share it with you. If you’re able to, during the unprecedented time we are living in, please consider buying a shirt. It will help me in many ways. Thank you!
I am trying to find ways to support myself. Will you help me please?
Click here to shop: We need a cure!
Thank you in advance my friends, dear readers, and family!
As I write this early this morning, I have my next FNA on my thyroid. This issue has been going on for 12 months and we still do not have any answer on whether this (spot) is a lymph node, thyroid tissues, cancer regrowth, or what. My hunch is that it’s my thyroid growing back as I had my gigantic tonsils removed in the early 90’s and they are also growing back.
I have a driver. I will be sedated. This isn’t my first rodeo so I thankfully have some tips to help myself during this.
I’m not going to lie. It’s an ordeal. It’s more than just “shoving a needle in my haystack neck hoping to find the damn needle.” 🙂 The procedure isn’t for another 3 hours and I’ve been awake since 4 AM trying to mentally prepare for it.
I’m hungry. I’m tired. I should go clean my room. Happy Friday!
I am having another fine-needle biopsy this Friday. Again. On my neck. Where I am not supposed to have a thyroid. I road this route in 2003 and 2006; I am supposed to be done. So what the hell is going on? I’m pissed this is still going on. Next month will be an entire year dealing with this thyroid “regrowth” and between dumb-ass insurance companies dicking me around, making me jump through additional UNNECESSARY hoops, etc. etc. I still don’t have an answer as to what the freak is growing in my thyroid bed.
The system is vehemently broken, as I’ve said before. And, I will say it again and again.
(Is it odd that I want it to be cancer or suspicious enough that they can just take “it” out?)
Give me another damn surgery so I don’t have to be worrying about thyroid cancer regrowth.
But guess what.
When you get a diagnosis of Cowden Syndrome worry comes with territory.
In these last 8 years I have learned that Cowden Syndrome equals worry. There’s no way around it.
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Click here to see the shirt I created for just this exact moment. Ironically enough, I created this when I was denied disability. Yet how appropriate is it for me today!
Do you know that this month is Brain Tumor Awareness Month?
Do you have your gear yet? (hint hint!)
If you follow me on Instagram you’ll know I promoted a post to (hopefully) get some traffic and potential customers friends who would help me in my advocacy this month. If you’re new here, I am living with 2 rare brain tumors in my cerebellum called Gangliocytoma.
Take a look at this link and if you feel so inclined (please!) to purchase a shirt I will be donating 20% of the proceeds to the National Brain Tumor Society. I initially created these shirts to advocate but also to help me with my daily living expenses.
When I first read the prompt for today, I thought about how much I love to crochet and yet I always wish I had learned how to knit. I would imagine my Mom probably knows how, but who knows. I do know that my Mom taught me how to crochet and she learned from her mother. I have made tons of afghans throughout the years, but unfortunately don’t have access to photograph them. I think they are shoved in the attic, but wrapped up of course. 🙂
If I think about learning to knit now, I get filled with anxiety. So lame, but it’s true. I can feel my tension rising even as I am typing this because my damn fingers don’t work like they once did. I am only in my mid-40’s for Pete’s sake, but because stupid brain tumors things just aren’t as they once were.
Sigh. I have the itch to create so I will continue editing photos as that is really enjoyable to me. Check out my Wordless Wednesday posts to see some of my photos.
And please don’t forget to visit my teespring store as I am struggling to survive post diagnosis and am looking for ways to raise money. Thank you! ❤
Check out the new custom t-shirt I just created!
Take a look at my entire store here. What other items would you like to see? I am doing all I can to be financially independent. Please consider buying a shirt if you can.
Thanks for looking!
I created this teespring store to raise money for my living expenses plus to raise awareness for Cowden Syndrome and Lhermitte-duclos Disease.
Take a look at the new shirt I created just now!
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PS…if you know anyone that creates artwork or is willing to donate their time to help me create more shirts, please contact me! Thanks!
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Check out this link to see some new items in my storefront.
I am very thankful for your support.
I think I have posted some crowd funding links here in the past. But, there have been a few changes to the links so I wanted to do a new post.
I created a storefront on Teespring a while ago. I created custom t-shirts that have a two-fold purpose. They can be conversation starters: “What does ‘Ganglio What’ mean? What does CHAMP signify?”
Maybe you don’t know the answers to those questions technically, but since you read my blog (hopefully continue to do so, hehe) you could say, “Oh. A friend of mine has a brain tumor called Gangliocytoma.” OR, “I follow a girl on Twitter who’s username is @ZHeatherChamp and I think she’s a champ too!” (insert smiley face here.)
If you bought one of those shirts you are helping bring awareness to my blog. Which in turn brings a conversation about Rare Diseases. Or brain tumors. Or hereditary cancer syndromes. Any of that! Or all of that! Win, win right? (Reason #1)
Reason #2, which is kind of a big deal, too. I receive part of the purchase price to help me navigate my medical bills. I won’t rehash the trauma. It’s real and it’s bad. 😦
Thank you thank you thank you! I’m forever grateful.
hopeforheather 