Another Year Thyroid Cancer Free & the Search for a Sweet New Scent

Today was my annual not-a-spa-day at Mass General Hospital to check on the lymph nodes that remained behind after they popped my cancerous thyroid out of my neck a few years ago.

Ok gang, take a breath, don't start worrying about lil' ol' me. I'm A-okay.

Several years ago I wasn't feeling like myself, I knew something wasn't right, and after multiple doc appointments and "normal" test results, a biopsy finally discovered my thyroid had morphed into something that looked like the Wicked Witch's ugly stepsister.

If you're gonna get cancer, papillary carcinoma is the one you want, or so the doctors told me. Sure, when they use the "c" word, there are moments you can't keep yourself from slipping into the dark & twisty places in your mind, but in the grand scheme of "c", thyroid cancer almost is a day at the spa - there is no chemo, no hair loss, no radiation (just a dose or two of radioactive iodine that buys you a five days of solo time to protect the innocent from your green glowing self - no you don't actually glow).

Two years ago, they discovered a few former-thyroid-neighbor lymph nodes had been harboring a gang of fugitive cancer cells, so one again I had a date with the surgeon's scalpel. He opened my neck like a Pez dispenser, popped those suckers out & sent me on my merry way.

And now I get to have the pleasure of a standing annual reservation with my endocrinologist for ultrasound and blood work fun. It's no big deal (other then the blood draw from a gal that HATES needles),  it's really just an inconvenience (fighting the traffic from my peaceful 'burb into the heart of Boston), but it's also an annual reminder that I had cancer and it could come visiting again someday.

As I drove homeward, I heard that dark & twisty place quietly beckoning me, then I saw it just ahead -- the mall -- the place of bright lights, soft muzak and endless retail therapy opportunities. I need a fresh tube of mascara and my favorite lipstick has gone MIA, afterall.

I wandered through the kaleidoscope of matte and frost, shadows and glosses, and then I caught a sweet, flowery whiff and my eyes widened at the sight of the expanse of colorful bottles. My mother once accused me of being "fragrance boring", wearing the same favorite fragrances for years and years -- Eternity, Issey Miyake, Bvlgari, Rain -- so I decided to explore the wall of unfamiliar bottles. Who knew Jennifer Aniston had a perfume!

The Bvlgari bottle on my dresser is almost empty, so I grabbed one of those -- sorry, Mom, I still love it -- then I began to spritz & sniff my way down the wall. Joan came to my aid, making suggestions based on what I was liking and what I turned my nose up at, and I finally took the plunge with small bottles of Marchesa and Clean's Rain.

Then Joan helped me find a new waterproof mascara, and showed me Josie Maran's new argan oil-infused skincare - "When you want to look like her," she said, pointing to the 20-something model in the promo poster. "We haven't looked like that in YEARS," I quipped. We shared a laugh, and compared our thyroidectomy scars -- what fun to talk skincare, makeup and dysfunctional thyroids with someone that wasn't the same age as the model on that poster!

Clutching my Sephora bag, I walked back to the Mom-mobile with a fresh scent swirling around me and a brighter outlook that chased away the dark & twisty.

Sometimes it really is the simple things that can turn a girl's day around.