Hi all,

Just wanted to pop back quickly and say hi to everyone and thank you for all the kindness and support. Also to wish everyone belated happy holidays!

I would also like to thank everyone for the kind PMs you have been sending, and I promise to try to answer them latest this weekend.

Overall, I am medium. Physically things are improving, though I am still very very tired. I had my first post treatment checkup this Monday (4 weeks post rads) and everything looked fine according to my surgeon.

Emotionally, well, it is rough. I have just come back from my normal doctor, and we have both agreed that what I seem to suffer from is lots and lots of anxiety and not depression. There is a baseline of anxiety which is something I can deal with most of the times. But then there are spikes, such as this lump here from this thread, then there was spending Christmas alone, more recently some strange blisters on my tongue that turned out to be nothing, than this checkup... I got some anti anxiety meds for these episodes, and I am looking for a therapist, but still no luck. And the anxiety/stress is making me not being able to eat, and I have already lost some weight which is not good.

Unfortunately being on this site seems to fuel my anxiety even more, because as soon as I read somebody's thread about something bad, my brain immediately goes to "what if" that happens to me. I feel very guilty about it, and I wish to comment to other people's threads and help others; but right now it is better for me to stay away till I get a better control of the whole anxiety thing and not freak out about everything. I hope you will forgive me for staying away for a while. Maybe once I find a therapist and/or a local support group I will be able to deal with it better.

As for the sources of anxiety that I believe I was asked in a PM, there are plenty. Other than the expected cancer/recurrence fears, there is dealing with waiting for a biopsy of a thyroid tumor I have that is in 4 weeks (which lit up like Christmas tree on a PET scan), then dealing with a big financial mess the disease got me into, and worries about how capable I will be to perform at work once I am back and look for a new job in a year or so as my position is temporary. And finally, I am extremely, painfully lonely, and very anxious about staying single and childless for the rest of my life because of the whole HPV thing.