Its a game of chance, the odds of being diagnosed with Thyroid cancer is 1 in 97 people. Sophomore Breanna Wespi is one of those 97. During an appointment with her doctor it was brought to her attention that there were possible cancer cells in her thyroid.

“It was kind of surprising to me because of what I went to the doctor for,” Wespi said.“It wasn’t painful or anything, I didn’t feel anything, so when they said it, it was really out of the blue and random.”

The thyroid is in the shape of a butterfly and sits right above the larynx at the front of the throat. It affects your metabolism, growth and hormones so the medicine would regulate the metabolism.

After four different tests and a biopsy, her doctors decided they needed to remove the left side of her thyroid. On Thursday, Feb. 12 Wespi will undergo surgery, while she is in surgery her doctors will conduct more tests, looking for any other possible cancer cells. If they find more cells on the right side of her thyroid they will go back and remove the rest of it.

Surgery always has some sort of risk for Thyroid surgery Wespi could suffer from permanent damage to her vocal cords if they are nicked.

“…the only thing that could change if they did take out all of my thyroid would be I’d have to be on medicine for the remainder of my life. So really I’ll just have to take a pill a day,” Wespi said.

Wespi said that if the test come back positive with more cancer cells then she will have to stay at an overnight hospital where they would give her a radioactive pill which will get rid of any other possible cancer cells.

One Week Later

“I just couldn’t believe that they actually found cancer, it was the last thing I would of expected.” Wespi said. After waking up loopy and disoriented Wespi asked the one question that shes been wondering the answer to for weeks. “Do I have cancer?”

When the doctors were doing the test on her while she was under they unfortunately found more cancer cells in the other half of her thyroid. After they removed the whole thyroid they stunded a lobe that is in your body which produces calcium. Wespi is currently taking medicine to make calcium in her body, her thyroid pill which will help her metabolism, and pain medicine to help the pain.

“I am really thankful that i’m going to be okay now and the cancer is gone since we caught it pretty quick,” Wespi said. “but hopefully I’ll do the radiation soon and it will kill any other cancer cells.”

In about a month or two Wespi will start the radiation treatment to eliminate all remaining cancer cells. She is going to take the radioactive pill then spend 24 hours in a hospital. For about a week after she is released she will be “isolated” because she will be radioactive so she will need to keep a 5 foot radius around her.

“I mean it really could’ve been bad, if I wouldn’t of gone to the doctor that day it could of spread and I might not have been so lucky.” Wespi said.