The tears welled in my eyes as I stared at a stone cold-faced doctor telling me I had a “small” and very “treatable” cancer. We should schedule surgery at my earliest convenience, since there was no “rush”. What?! No rush to getting that monster out of my body as soon as possible, are you kidding me? I thought about telling my family, my friends, my boyfriend and it was just too much to bear. I had never been sick other than a common cold that lasted no more than a week, how was I going to deal with the pain of surgery, the recovery process. Did I need chemotherapy? She did not know the details of my case until they took samples of the removed thyroid. So the whole organ had to be removed? Yes, it was best to limit the chances of recurrence. Total thyroidectomy and right neck dissection to be performed on April 27, 2009, a month from the date of diagnosis. Oh God, why me? I can’t deal with this. Just kill me, don’t let me suffer like my grandmother, my aunt, my grandfather. So now what? I walked out of the doctors office in a daze, “do you want me to call somebody” she handed me a tissue before I left, “I have your sister’s number here as your emergency contact”. Yeah, sure my sister who has my eight-month old nephew in the hospital with a terrible cold and has been through enough to have to deal with my shit, call her I thought. “No, I’ll be fine,” I said, really wishing I would be. I walked the streets in a daze, tears falling uncontrollably, I didn’t care if people thought I was crazy they didn’t just hear that they had thyroid cancer. I went to the hospital with my sister and my nephew. He cried and I thought “you’re crying for the both of us, I wish I could scream as loud as you”.