Help Sara Kick Cancer's Butt!!

As many of you know, I've done a lot of fundraising over the years for cancer charities.  It's really meant a lot to me to do what I could to help fight after losing several people I love.  Well, now it's time for me to do some fundraising for myself.  I was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer after my mom noticed a lump on my neck when I was home for the holidays.  Thankfully, thyroid cancer is treatable and has incredible odds, but it's still cancer and completely life changing.  

I am having surgery on February 11th to remove my entire thyroid, lymph nodes in my neck and possibly my parathyroid glands as well.  I still have more doctors appointments and biopsies to determine the extent of how far it has spread.  After the surgery, I will most likely have to have a radioactive iodine treatment.  Thyroid cancer doesn't respond to the chemo used on most other cancers.  So, I have to have an alternate type of chemo to hopefully kill any remaining thyroid cells and to keep the cancer from spreading again.  This will hopefully be a one time treatment and I won't have to keep going back and putting my body through that.

After all of this, I will have to work with my endocrinologist to replace the thyroid hormones that will now not be produced in my body at all.  I will have to be on thyroid hormone replacement the rest of my life.  The process to find the right levels can take a while.  I've been told anywhere between 6 months and one year.  After we find the right levels, I should feel like myself again.  

Again, I am very thankful that the prognosis is a positive one for this type of cancer, but I'm not going to lie - it's still scary to walk through all of this.  I'm not exactly looking forward to the next 6 months to year of surgery, treatment and everything else BUT I have an incredible team of doctors and know I will get through it.  Thankfully, I do have insurance, but I will still have a lot of medical bills to pay and rather than stressing about it all and going into some serious debt, I wanted to reach out and ask for some help.  If you can donate anything, I will be so grateful.  I know that everyone has financial stress and it's not always possible.  I completely understand that as well.  Only give if you want to and can.  

Also, please know that any donations that I raise above and beyond what I need for my medical bills, I will donate to a cancer charity.  This diagnosis has forever changed my life and it has made me even more dedicated to living life to the absolute fullest, taking the best possible care of my body and giving back as much as I possibly can.  Thank you all for taking the time to read this and for being a part of my life.  I love you.  Sara