>> Welcome back.
The Dolphin County woman went to her doctor for her annual exam, a routine visit that
turned out to be much more than she ever expected.
Here is Janice Schan's journey.
>> I'd been to Italy, and we wrote a gondola.
I went to Paris.
We saw the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa, and I continued to have plans and dreams of my
next trip.
>> 45-year-old Janice Shand now makes the most of every moment.
A doctor's visit changed her way of thinking.
>> I went to the doctor for my annual visit.
It was for a Pap test actually, and the doctor felt my neck just for about a second.
And then she said, "Wow, your thyroid's really inflamed."
And she felt it again, and she said immediately, "I'm sending you for an ultrasound."
I remember thinking, "Okay, yeah.
I'll do an ultrasound.
Whatever."
Thinking, "I'm 36, and I'm healthy.
This is weird.
I'll just do the test because you're asking me to do it."
I didn't think anything about that until she called to say she had something wrong and
had to go and have a needle biopsy.
And so I said okay.
Tried to keep it in like I am now.
They wanted to check it out even further and do an actual biopsy.
They had seen something that was suspicious.
>> Janice asked her doctor to call with the results.
>> The doctor said it was definitely thyroid cancer, and I remember just being dumbfounded,
like not crying.
I just was in shock I think.
And I said, "Okay, well what do we do next?"
A mother's action is always let's get this fixed.
>> So Janice and her mother, Pat, met with head and neck surgeon, Dr. David Goldenberg,
who reviewed her PET scan.
>> This is her neck region here.
As we scroll by, you can see that there's areas that light up throughout the neck, in
the middle portion of the neck as well as the side of the neck and in the chest.
All of these are indicative of metastatic papillary thyroid cancer.
I explained to her that she had a relatively advanced case of papillary thyroid cancer
and because she is a young woman that her prognosis was still excellent.
>> The first thing he said to me was, "You will be fine."
And that was just the best thing that he could have said to me because I knew I was in capable
hands, and he was going to take care of me.
>> Some reassurance that Janice needed.
>> We proposed a total thyroidectomy, bilateral lymph node dissection and bilateral central
compartment and upper chest lymph node dissection.
>> I just remember thinking, "I have to do something about this."
I wasn't -- I wasn't afraid of it.
I knew I had to do it.
I knew I had to take care of it, get this thing out of me.
This bad thing that was in my body.
>> A ten hour surgery, then time spent recovering in the hospital.
>> I ended up having my whole thyroid removed and 60 lymph nodes were removed and 30 they
found were cancerous.
>> She had a bulky lymph node metastases in the left and right lateral neck and in the
central compartment.
So she had spread of her disease to lymph nodes throughout her neck at the time of diagnosis
and at the time of surgery.
>> Dr. Goldenberg says thyroid cancer can recur so patients need to be monitored for
life with thyroglobulin blood tests and neck ultrasounds.
>> She had a couple of recurrences in some relatively remote areas of her neck, which
are indicative of the fact that she did in fact have a more aggressive case of papillary
thyroid cancer.
We only discovered this because of the blood tests and the high resolution ultrasound that
we had available and the fact that we watched her very closely.
>> For the past five years, Janice's tests have been negative.
No cancer detected.
>> I think she's doing just fine.
Thank goodness.
>> It's kind of been -- I don't know -- like a gift even though you went through a really
hard thing, but now you see things differently and I'm okay.
So let's live life to the fullest.
>> Now Janice's days are filled with what's really important to her.
>> I spend more time with friends and family.
I travelled the [inaudible].
I feel lucky that I can do it.
I feel lucky that I'm still here, and I can see all these beautiful places that I never
even knew of before.
I'm fortunate to be able to do it and why not?
I've been through a lot, and I should treat myself.