I had no symptoms. The first time I went to see the doctor, I was going to for treatment for what I thought was an ulcer. The doctor suspected I have goiter but I refused to believe it. Fifteen years later, I had my annual check-up, six months into my pregnancy, and the doctor requested a thyroid ultrasound. There is a complex mass on my right lobe, so I had biopsy after giving birth. The biopsy says "papillary carcinoma" so I had a surgery right away. During my third pregnancy, the doctor advised me to take thyroid hormone as maintenance up to this day.

My symptoms of thyroid cancer were hoarseness and I lost my voice altogether, eventually. I lost weight; I had headaches and my neck and joints were hurting. This is really scary.

When I was 28 yrs old, I started losing weight very fast and developed a huge appetite. I could not stop eating, yet kept losing weight. At first, none of my doctors took me seriously because I was young and looked healthy. However, I had a history of childhood cancer so I was concerned. Finally, I went to a routine health screening at work to check my skin for signs of skin cancer and the doctor noticed that I had a very large lump in my thyroid. Within a month, the lump had turned into multiple tumors and the doctor decided to remove my thyroid to be on the safe side. He thought it was unlikely that it was malignant because there were multiple cystic tumors. As it turned out, it was an aggressive form of thyroid cancer but had not yet spread outside of the thyroid. Surgery was followed by radioactive iodine and followed up regularly by body scans and ultrasound. So far, I have been in remission and symptom-free for over 10 years.

I was hyperthyroid for 5 years (at least that was when I was diagnosed). I was "non-symptomatic," except for nodule. The nodule grew during that 5 years, and then another one developed. After having profound hyperthyroid symptoms and the nodule started to affect my voice, I had a total thyroidectomy. The first frozen section indicated no cancer, but the second showed papillary carcinoma in the tissue on the edge of my thyroid.

I developed a cough. I coughed for months and it got to the point where I could barely speak a sentence without being interrupted by coughing. A reason for the coughing was not easily discovered, but when cancer was revealed I had surgery to remove my thyroid gland. The cancer returned and spread twice, after that, to my lymph nodes, for a total of three operations within two years. I am now in remission and checked every three months.