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Redefining Mom: Melissa Keen is Taking on Thyroid Cancer

Redefining Mom: Melissa Keen is Taking on Thyroid Cancer

Melissa Keen is a mother and NICU nurse, as well as one of our 2013 Top 30 Vancouver Mom Bloggers. She’s also a thyroid cancer survivor. In fact, while we were celebrating last night at Glam, Melissa was recovering from her latest cancer surgery. When we had the chance to connect with Melissa to talk about how she’s redefining motherhood and taking on thyroid cancer, we couldn’t pass it up.

I Was Sick all the Time

Melissa was 23 years old in March of 2006. She shares, “I was a new graduate from the collaborative nursing program at UVic and I just started working full-time at VGH. I had been getting sick a lot, not really knowing why. My mom always said I had a weak immune system growing up, so I chalked it up to that or common colds going around. After one of my close aunts told me that my neck looked funny I started to think that something was wrong. I decided to go to my family doctor. He wasn’t in his office, he was on vacation, so I ended up seeing a locum. Within minutes of telling her that I was sick all the time she ran her hands down her throat and found a mass at the base of my neck.”

Melissa’s doctor sent her for blood tests and an ultrasound, and the latter confirmed that there was a four centimeter mass in the left side of her neck. She says, “Following that I went to go see a surgeon and he took a biopsy of the mass in his office. A few weeks later it came back, he sat me down in his office, told me that I had cancer. I was in the operating room on June 5th, 2006. I had my total thyroid removed to treat my papillary thyroid cancer. It was about stage three, it was already in my lymph nodes, so they had to remove about 50 lymph nodes and a subsequent radioactive iodine therapy to basically kill off any of the other cancer cells that could have been anywhere in my body.”

It Takes a Little Piece of Me

redefining mom melissa keen thyroid cancer“When I was first diagnosed I was told that if you were to have cancer, it would be the type of cancer that in so many ways isn’t so bad to have. It’s non-life-threatening, but it’s more recurrent.” This means that it can keep coming back, as it has two times now for Melissa. She explains, “I may have to deal with this every year, every couple of years, I’m not quite sure, which is really the awful thing. Even though it’s not going to kill me, it takes a little piece of me every time.”

Melissa’s thyroid cancer returned again in 2008, and most recently this year. This most recent diagnosis was very different, though, because Melissa is now a mom. She shares, “After my first time being diagnosed with thyroid cancer being a mom was probably one of my biggest concerns. I always had a dream of being a mom. I met my husband in July of 2008, only a few weeks before my second cancer diagnosis. He decided he would stick around and support me, and we were married in September of 2010, and I found out three weeks after our honeymoon that we were pregnant.” This was especially good news, because many women who have thyroid imbalances can face difficulties getting pregnant. “That really scared me,” Melissa says, “because I didn’t have a thyroid anymore. I was really afraid that having my thyroid removed could impact my ability to bear children.”

Redefining Motherhood, Battling Thyroid Cancer

For her most recent iodine treatment, Melissa was admitted into the hospital on April 10, 2013 and discharged on April 12. Having a toddler-aged son changed things for her significantly. She says, “I was terrified. I knew from my prior experiences that I had to be in the hospital, that it could possibly mean surgery. When I got my diagnosis my son was about 18 months old, and he was still breastfeeding, and I knew that if I was to have surgery or receive radioactive iodine treatments I would have to wean him off. When I got out of the hospital on the 12th I couldn’t see him for three days because I was still radioactive. It was terrible – this was by far the hardest treatment that I’ve had to go through.”

One of the ways that Melissa confronted her most recent thyroid cancer diagnosis was by starting her blog, KeenMommy.com. She says, “I started my blog a week before my treatment. What I really wanted to do with it was create a space for myself to heal, and reach out to people. At first I wanted it to be private, but then I thought, there are so many people in this world who are going through the same thing, and have no voice or have no one to turn to. I really wanted people to be able to see that anyone can go through it, and anyone can survive it. Knowing what I went through is something that is very important to me, because I never was able to talk about it before. And I want my son to know that his mom’s a strong person.”

redefining mom melissa keen thyroid cancer

Thank You, Melissa

Melissa is looking forward to moving beyond this latest thyroid cancer diagnosis, but she can never forget. She says, “A little piece of me is always fearful, and I think about it every day. I don’t like to live in fear, I just like to live with perspective. I know that tomorrow may change, but for now everything is going to be fine.”

We’d really like to thank Melissa for sharing her story with us. We’re so inspired by how she’s redefining motherhood, battling thyroid cancer, and maintaining a sense of perspective. We’re all pulling for her. All the best, Melissa!

Family photo credit: Lesley Ord, www.lesleyord.com

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  • You are such an incredible woman and Marcus is truly blessed to have such a wonderful mum. Keep on going strong.

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