Thyroid Cancer Support Group

Hi everyone,

Well here it goes, my first post in any type of forum.
I am a 27 year old new father and I have an older brother who is 34 years old 6' 4" and built like a brick poop house. He was diagnosed with a growth in his neck about 4 months ago. Now I have a different older brother. He is a very hard worker 2 jobs since he was 16, has never talked about emotions and is very shy (I have never seen him with his shirt off shy). He would do anything to help anyone.

I guess the Dr. told him he needs to have the lump removed ASAP. He didnt tell anyone and did not schedule an appointment because my son was due within a couple months and our sister had her wedding just a couple days ago. He said he did not want to ruin any of that. Well he ended up telling our mom who told us kids. When he was ready to talk to me about it he started to cry and I have never seen him cry in my life. I knew I could not show fear or cry with him. I already knew what he was going to say, I had time to think about it and keep strong to try and lift his spirit about it. I was telling him its a walk in the park, and its the best cancer to have. I even said "if I walked in a cancer store and had to pick one cancer, that thyroid cancer would be it". I don't know if that was the best way to go about it now.

Well I'll get to it. he had his operation on June 15th. The Dr. said he had Cancer and he believes he removed it all and that he has a very high success rate in recovering. Well in recovery when he was drugged up he blurted out "I just want to die" and "I should have died 10 years ago". (10 years ago he was a passenger in an SUV that was struck by a train in a crazy train crossing signal). Not the family nor I have ever heard anything like that ever come out of his mouth. I just linked it to the medication. Last night I guess he was talking with my mom and said it again, that he should have died 10 years ago. It is really hard on us, but I cant imagine what is going through his head or what the medications are doing or how long it takes for them to get the amount right.

I'm sorry for the terrible grammar and run on sentences, but if anyone out there has anything on their recovery or anything that helped them keep their spirits up? If depression is really common? I guess he agreed to see a therapist I just know he needs some kind of support right now. Also if anyone knows of some kind of support groups in Utah I could take him to. I have tried searching, but couldnt find anything.

Well thank you for taking the time to read this.

Eli
Posted on 07/03/12, 03:04 am