It was there all along
6 months post-partum, my doctor noticed a lump on my throat. We waited out breast-feeding, let the hormones settle. We ultra-sounded, we biopsied. It was a benign mass on my thyroid, something to monitor. Nothing to take care of with an infant at home. Of course it stayed with me, both literally and in limbo.
Years went by. Infant to toddler to little boy. Not only was my kiddo growing, so was the mass. So last year, removal presented itself as the best option. There wasn’t a timeline on it, no one forcing my hand. Still just a consideration.
Then last fall, I felt a sudden sense of urgency. Was it a rush if the nodules (now plural) were benign? Why now, when I felt fine and wouldn’t feel different afterwards? Why not wait until Sebi is a little older, a little more self-sufficient? I asked myself all of this repeatedly but the pull toward now did not go away.
It wasn’t dramatic but it was consistent enough that I began to pave the path myself, interviewed surgeons I’d googled to find the best (which to me is the one who listens and gives me agency and empowerment in my process). All of this in the middle of some of the busiest and hardest times of my professional career.
“Do it now.” - a mantra at this point - made me stop trying to make perfect sense of it. So I listened, as I’ve been doing, more than ever in my life. I spent the last few months ritualizing the lead in and paving the path for creating the same on the recovery side.
—
We just did the thing, less than a week ago. I walked myself in. “There’s no one here with you?” I kept getting asked. “No.” And that was ok. I had done the preparation work and all of it felt settled and peaceful.
It went well despite “minor complications,” which, depending on who you ask, were a little more eventful than that, but overall, a success. The breathwork, mantras, meditation paid off.
—
A few days ago, I got the call.
The masses we had been watching? Benign, as we’d known. But on the organ itself, separate from all of that, there it was. Cancer. It was there all along. Not something we had seen or predicted. Contained. And now completely removed. And, admittedly, a lot easier to look at in the eye in hindsight.
That was the moment the whole thing landed. Because suddenly, “why now?” wasn’t a question anymore. There. Quietly. The entire time. Not seen or predicted, but something in me had clocked it.
—
Before the surgery, a friend said to me, “What do you mean you won’t feel different? Your body wakes up every day with something foreign in your throat - in the space of your voice, your truth, your self-expression. Imagine not having that there. Imagine the possibility.”
At the time, I understood it intellectually.
On this side, I understand it fully.
—
I keep thinking about how much we want certainty before we act.
But more often than not, the body knows before the mind can explain it. It senses what’s already there. Follow it, always, even when the answer only arrives after the decision has already been made.