Apparently the weight gain is from 1) steroids that they pump into you with the chemo and 2) chemo makes your body basically go into menopause – or “chemopause” as some call it – which involves a slowing of the metabolism, and, thus, weight gain! Now I have body image issues on top of everything else!

I don’t know what I would have done, or could have done, differently had I known, but I find it ridiculous that this is not told to patients beforehand.  Do the doctors and nurses think that we’d consider not having chemotherapy if we were told ahead of time that it will make us gain weight?

It showed some “activity” with my thyroid.  No masses anywhere, though – good news!  But what the heck is going on with my thyroid now, I wondered.  Something else to worry about.  Cancer?

I saw my oncologist a week later and she said it’s not cancer, but it’s something, so let’s do a thyroid function test (a blood test) and see.  She also told me that thyroid problems have been known to occur from radiation.  Just my luck!

She called me a couple of days later and said that the blood test confirmed that I have hypothyroidism.  She suggested I schedule an appointment to see an endocrinologist, and so I did.  She said that hypothyroidism could be transient, but it could also be a lifelong problem, and is most often associated with fatigue and weight gain – GREAT!

Thyroid function tests looks at three thyroid hormones:  T3, T4 and TSH.  While my T3 and T4 are within normal limits, the TSH is high.  The normal range is 0.40 – 4.50 and I mine is 16.99.

Now I’m being told that I have something else wrong with me – because apparently breast cancer and all the other crap I’ve had to go through just wasn’t enough on my plate!

I’m trying really hard not to dwell on it, but I was given the choice of whether or not to get radiation therapy because my case was borderline and the doctors were torn.  I chose to do it even though I didn’t want to because I could not think of a good enough reason not to do it.  I should have gone with my gut!  Everything that’s happened to me since completing radiation therapy is my reason to say no to the choice of radiation or no radiation – too bad I didn’t know this before I made my decision.