Read Online Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt - Free Book Online Page B

and 90 percent of people who are found to have thyroid nodules do not have cancer, which is why Kelly’s doctor had tried to reassure her. Tests needed to be done before there was any cause for worry. A chest X-ray, neck ultrasound, and thyroid function and blood tests followed. At last, a fine needle aspiration biopsy was performed. Then came the confirmation Kelly had feared all along: She had papillary thyroid cancer. Two surgeries in Boston followed, including a thyroidectomy, where doctors cut a three-inch-long incision in the front of Kelly’s neck and pulled out the diseased gland. The cancer appeared to be contained, but just to be sure, doctors suggested radioactive iodine therapy, or radioiodine treatment, which they hoped would kill any remaining metastatic cells. The thyroid is the only tissue in the body that takes up and holds on to iodine. But radioactive iodine therapy is a punishing treatment, requiring patients to be isolated in a single room for several days, because after they ingest the iodine they remain slightly radioactive, evidenced in their sweat and urine. Patients undergoing the treatment are asked to flush the toilet twice after relieving themselves to rinse away as much of the leftover radioactive fluid as possible, and nursing staff change the sheets on patients’ beds every day. A kind of medical Geiger counter is used to keep track of a person’s radioactivity, and when it is finally low enough the patient is discharged.
    After the iodine treatment, there were checkups and follow-up scans at the Dana Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center in Boston. Sometimes Kelly’s friend, the one fighting her own second battle with thyroid cancer, would drive her to the hospital—a 240-mile trek straight down I-95 from Orono to Boston. But often Kelly drove herself, once or twice in the middle of a snowstorm. When she did, her mantra was always the same: “I need to live ten more years, just ten more years. If I can make it to ten years, Wyatt and Jonas will have a chance.” It wasn’t that she didn’t think Wayne loved both boys, but if she died and he had to raise the kids alone, he would likely continue to struggle to understand Wyatt and not know what to do for him, and she dreaded the thought of Wyatt being alone, without his mother to tell him that everything would be okay.
    Occasionally the whole family packed into the car for the trip to Boston. Kelly had told the boys matter-of-factly that she was sick, but that she was getting medicine in Boston to make it all better. She was petrified, of course, but there was no way she was going to frighten Wyatt and Jonas. She had to stay calm for both boys.
    When the family made the trip with her they stayed at a Holiday Inn, where the kids could swim. Kelly and Wayne would sit and watch them, all the while talking about how the twins were doing in school, or Wayne’s job—anything but cancer. They were having a hard time not feeling sorry for themselves, when one day a young boy, not more than thirteen, shuffled by them wearing a kind of housecoat. He had no hair, his face was thin, and his eyes seemed lost. His parents walked alongside him, and they were just as pale and worried looking as their son. Kelly and Wayne watched the small family walk from the pool, down the hall, and back into their room. Then they looked at each other and without saying a word gave thanks for their own good fortune. No matter how much they were being tested, they knew their children were safe and well. When the months of treatment were finally over, doctors gave Kelly a clean bill of health. Her cancer scare was over, and Kelly was more determined than ever to be there for her family.
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    O NE OF W YATT AND Jonas’s favorite times of the day was when Kelly read them a story before going to sleep. Between the boys’ twin beds was a wooden chair whose seat Kelly had painted yellow on the right side (Wyatt’s choice) and purple on the left (Jonas’s). A red