Beating Thyroid Cancer

Hi, my name is Leonardo and I am 40 years old. I was born in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, but have been living in Portugal since 2018 as I am also a Portuguese citizen. I am married and have a 9-year-old daughter, who means everything to me.

Before moving to Portugal 6 years ago, I had a full check-up and found an enlarged cervical lymph node on a routine carotid Doppler. However, it was not considered so relevant back then as its characteristics were suggestive of some benign reaction (reactive lymph node).

Therefore, many doctors told me not to give too much importance to that and I simply moved on with my new life in Portugal without thinking too much about it. I have been very healthy since then and my life has been moved by sports every single day.

I have been running half-marathons, trails, night runs as well as playing Padel 5 to 6 times a week, sometimes over 3 hours per day. I´ve never felt so strong in my entire life!

However, I noted that my cervical lymph node was getting bigger and decided to have a look at it again since it had been there for a long time without reducing to the original size. The idea was to make sure it was all good.

I had a short trip to my hometown on April 2024 and decided to set an appointment with a head neck surgeon in Rio de Janeiro. He ran an ultrasound test and found out that the referred lymph node was not so nice anymore, which means that something was definitely not right.

So, we started running all kinds of tests:

FNA (Fine-Needle Aspiration)

CT Scan (Computer Tomography Scan)

Cervical Ultrasonography

The results showed me a thyroid nodule suggesting a Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma (PTC) and the enlarged lymph node I had in my neck was also identified as a regional spread of the PTC as per the second aspiration done a couple of days later.

Even though these news fully devastated me at the first moment, the surgeon explained everything to me in detail and showed me that the prognosis is excellent due to many factors like my age (40) and general condition (strong/healthy).

They know how to treat this disease (the most common type of thyroid cancer) and I just need to go over two processes to wake up from this nightmare:

a) Surgery

b) Radioiodine Therapy

The first step will be going over a full thyroidectomy with central and lateral neck dissection. This surgery will open my neck and remove the disease.

The second step will be taking a small glass with radioiodine, which will make sure there will be no remaining thyroid cells on my neck. I will become radioactive for a couple of days and will have to be away from my 9-year old daughter as I cannot have contact with children and pregnant women.

Then I will have to take a daily pill with synthetic thyroid hormone to the rest of my life to compensate the thyroid removal. According to the doctors, it is just a morning pill which will have no impact on my quality of life.

The surgery has just been scheduled to a top-tier hospital in Lisbon and will happen next month. My medical insurance will help me with part of the treatment but I will still have a lot of expenses during the process. I have also spent a lot of money in Brazil when I found out the disease and need to cover part of those expenses so they won´t impact my family so much.

I have already done a lot of things in my life:

Soccer Player

Country Pop Singer

Lawyer

Police Officer

But I want to do a lot more!! I am too young to look back!! I want to look forward and keep on following my way through life. Actually, I used to see cancer as a death sentence as I lost my father for a prostate cancer back in 2019.

However, my situation is totally different as the doctors told me it is totally curable and I just need to go over the proper treatment. Actually, I just want to leave it all behind...

My friends from the Police Force in Rio de Janeiro make fun at me all the time saying that if the heavily armed criminals could not shoot me down during so many years in a war zone like Rio, why would cancer beat me now?

And they are right... So, I am grateful to God, to my family, my friends, and my doctors for everything! I am sad that I will have to go through that but on the other hand I am happy that I found out on an early stage and it can be healed.

But now is the time to make the right move so I can reach the other side of this road safe and sound. Please take my hand and help me through.

With all my love,

Leonardo