Grateful for some, frustrated at other things

Hello everyone!! I was genuinely so happy to find a subreddit just for thyroid cancer specifically because the journey I've been on for the last couple of months has been a doozy and I guess I just needed to get this off of my chest, so excuse me if I begin to ramble at some points!

(Also please excuse me if I get any of the terminology wrong, English isn't my native language. Please correct me if I'm wrong at any point!)

First of all, I wanted to say how privileged I am in this aspect of the fact that from diagnosis/suspicion to my surgery being around two months of time, I want to say to everyone who is waiting right now that you are incredibly strong and absolutely do not let anyone invalidate you regarding this.

I got diagnosed with stage 1 thyroid cancer around earlier in June and got my surgery (a total thyroidectomy, I believe it was called. the type where they remove the entire thyroid. I also had an entire heave of thyroid nodules, some so big they actually made my neck appear a bit bigger)

and it's been an entire rollercoaster of emotions to say the least, both for me and my loved ones.

Obviously I am grateful for my main surgeon, his team and the nurses at the hospital I was staying at. That goes without saying. I am also insanely grateful for the support my immediate family and my partner have given me. They made my stress virtually nonexistent and helped me so much pre-surgery and post-surgery.

And then there are those family members who are a bit more... narrow-minded in terms of how they view medicine. Not in the antivaxxer way, but like, "Oh! I read this article! You have to not eat this! And not do this!" etc.

When you try to tell them that I'll only listen to my surgeon's advice, it goes one ear and out the other and they continue on their little spiel of how the ultimate pinnacle of health is only being thin and that's it and if you cut out all sugar and processed foods forever, you'll be as healthy as you can possibly be! (It's really funny seeing them basically imply I could have avoided this altogether if I had just eaten like they do, even though I've been overweight for most of my life and it was hard for me to lose weight even with how I tried every diet in the book)

I'm learning to ignore their words because it's just mindless ignorant noise at some point (which is hard to do because even despite all of that they're still people that I love and have really come through and supported me in the past, it's just in regards to health, they have a very narrow-minded look at these sorts of things), it's still like. Damn. Shouldn't you be focusing on the fact that we found what was wrong with me and got rid of it in this quick of a time? Not what I should be or not be doing, like they were the ones that were doing the damn operation?

But anyway, I got most of what I wanted off of my chest and even despite the fact that I'm not even a week post-op, this is the best I've felt in a really long time and I can feel like I can tackle my mid-to-late 20s now with much more ease.

It still feels surreal, I guess? Like, knowing you had cancer. Knowing that and you don't know for how long you've had it and know that you know more about it, it feels like most medical problems that you've had make sense now. (Hell, I didn't even really know what a thyroid was 3 months ago) It's a very refreshing feeling.

And the extra attention and support I'm getting doesn't hurt either :P

But yes, I want to end this off with a positive note. I truly am grateful for how fast this got resolved. And this has truly gotten me thinking of exploring being an activist again. More people need to know that this is something that should be taken seriously and have more researched poured into it. And I'm glad I'm not ignorant anymore and I know more about myself and my own body.

Have a great day, everyone. Thank you for reading! :)

Stay strong and fight for yourself, in all aspects.