This Is My Story….

Dear friends,
This may well be more than you want to know…
But you have been so kind, so concerned, so interested in this new health challenge that I am writing to share the remarkable story about how God has been at work in my life in a most humbling, amazing way over these last few months…

August 20, 2008. I had just returned to North Carolina from an exhilarating, inspiring three days at Methodist Hospital in Memphis. Thanks to Duke Endowment, I and other District Superintendents participated in a Clergy Health Clinic full of consultations, tests, education and inspiration about our physical health. We had complete physicals as part of this experience so I brought a full folder of test results to my doctor in Charlotte for my long-scheduled regular followup appointment. This is the first miracle.

Dr. Lackey might very well have said, “You have just had a thorough workup in the last 48 hours. Let’s just talk.” But she didn’t. She did her own examination and, when she was feeling my throat, she paused. “Clear your throat,” she said. And, when she felt it again, she said, “Here, take a drink of water and let me feel this while you are swallowing.” After feeling my throat again, she said, “There’s something there I haven’t noticed before. I want to get an ultrasound of your thyroid.”
Just before she walked out the door, I said, “Is this something I should worry about?” “No,” she replied. “Growths on the thyroid pop up all the time. It’s my job to worry.”

The next week was New District Superintendent training, more accurately known as Boot Camp. When I got back from there (the last of the 5 weeks of traveling and training), I got the ultrasound and was happy to settle in for a normal fall. Ha.
The next week—the second week of September—I learned during the cabinet meeting that the ultrasound results indicated that the growth on my thyroid could be consistent with cancer so my doctor started working to get me an appointment with an endoctrinologist. I guess everyone in the world needed to see an endoctrinologist in Charlotte. The first appointment I could get was October 29. Yikes. That’s a long time to live with this kind of uncertainty.

So, while my doctor was working to find something sooner, I emailed my colleague on the cabinet from Winston-Salem, Bill Medlin, to see if, by chance, he knew anyone at Baptist Hospital. Bill said he only knew one person at Baptist, but he would contact him. As it turns out, the person he knew was the head of anaesthesiology who knew the head of endoctrine surgery at Baptist – who worked me in for a biopsy within two days. Amazing. Dr. Albertson was not only wonderful with the biopsy (this is September 18), he was very gifted in explaining the possibilities and path for what might be ahead. “Should I worry?” I asked again. “No,” he said, “not yet. 95% of thyroid tumors are benign. “

My sister is a physician and, in addition to saving the lives of thousands of babies in her neonatal practice through the years, she has served our family as the best kind of nurse, interpreter of medical data and resource. Ruthie was way ahead of the process and already looking up who I should go to if I needed surgery. She had found a surgeon at Duke that is exceptional. Knowing me, she was looking for special care of the vocal chords and this surgeon has a monitor on the vocal chords throughout the surgery. She wanted me to see Dr. John Olson if I needed to have surgery and she had all the information ready.

95% seemed like a very favorable number. We had learned enough to know already that the worst-case scenario (a malignant diagnosis) was highly treatable. We don’t have any family history of cancer so it was easier to take his advice and not worry.
But this surgery has a side effect of potential consequences to the vocal chords. Anyone who even remotely knows me knows that my vocal chords are highly valued resources of my life and well-being. So the idea that my speaking voice and my singing voice could be affected, changed or damaged was especially unnerving. My voice is at the core of who I am and what I do.

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