It Is My Grandmother's Fault

"Did you have any radioactive treatments? Any Thyroid cancer in your family history?" the doctor asked, to which I answered "No" to each. My father's side of the family has had a lot of cancer. My mother's mother had a brain tumor. But no thyroid cancer. I haven't lived near power lines, taken radioactive treatments, talked at length on cell phones, or done any of the myriad of things that might lead to Thyroid cancer.

I kept thinking - I must have been exposed to something. I must have done something wrong. And as I racked my brain, I could think of nothing. I did have that radioactive test two years ago and I was convinced that must have caused this! However, the doctor and all my research said that was impossible.

Maybe I just drew the short straw? Shit happens. Maybe there was no explanation for why I was picked to get Thyroid cancer.

And then my mother recalled that her mother-in-law (my grandmother on my father's side) used to always complain about her goiter. A goiter is a growth on the Thyroid that can push on the esophagus. The goiters can grow due to cancer.

That is my best lead so far. Grandma had a goiter that might have been cancer and now so do I.

That means this is all my Grandma's fault! She caused this. She did this to me. It is easy for me to get angry at a woman I barely knew. I saw my Grandma once or twice per year growing up, but only saw her once or twice as a teenager. She was a recluse who never ventured from her home and relied on the care given by her daughter. She died when I was like 19 from pneumonia, although I recall my cousin saying it was cancer related. I attended her funeral as a representative of my family and got to be a pail bearer.

After a brief moment of anger that my cancer is my grandmother's fault, I quickly realized (other than biologically) she had nothing to do with it. She didn't give birth to my father knowing she was passing some mutated gene or whatever. My father, who died of cancer when I was just a child, didn't have me and my siblings believing he was passing on mutated genes. Equally, I didn't think I might be passing mutated genes to my children. You have to take the good with the bad. And honestly, there is far better good than bad.

So, it is my Grandmother's fault biologically in that she was likely the source. For me, the mystery is solved.