Enterprising Teen Donates to Kids Fighting Cancer
- A remarkable and big-hearted teen in Maryland started a book drive for children going through cancer treatment after her dad battled thyroid cancer. She hopes to donate to the same hospital where her dad was treated.
- Treatments for thyroid cancer can include surgery, hormone therapy, radioactive iodine, radiation, and chemotherapy.
- Thyroid cancer symptoms include a lump in the neck, swelling in the neck, pain in the neck, trouble swallowing, and trouble breathing.
View this post on InstagramRead MoreWUSA9 reports that Bhatnagar and her dad were always close. She tells the news outlet how her doting dad "was always there.” Bhatnagar’s dad would bring her lunch at school and eat with her during her elementary school years, as she was a shy kid. Her dad wanted to ensure she had someone to eat lunch with every day.Hearing memories like these, it’s no wonder why her dad’s cancer diagnosis affected her so profoundly. "We would do everything together," she tells the news outlet. "[We] still do almost everything together, and so obviously, I was pretty devastated."
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Bhatnagar struggled during her father’s illness, suffering from anxiety and disordered eating; this led her to take time off of school and take care of herself. One way she did that was by getting lost in books. As she read, her father made “a miraculous recovery,” and she thought about how her love of books could transform others’ lives, too.
"When I realized a lot of young children are struggling with the same or similar battles as my dad was facing, undergoing chemo or radiation … books always made me happy, so I supposed that books would also make them happy as well," she says.
Using a social media app called Nextdoor, Bhatnagar asked neighbors to donate books for children going through cancer. "I was expecting like maybe one or two responses," she remembers. "But there were hundreds."
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To date, she’s donated nearly 5,000 books to young cancer patients, no doubt transforming the lives of many. You can follow her efforts on Instagram, at @forloveandbuttercup.
Understanding Thyroid Cancer
Thyroid cancer is a disease that begins in the thyroid gland, which is at the base of the neck. The cancer will often present itself as a large bump (tumor) in the neck. It remains unclear what causes the disease. Some symptoms of thyroid cancer can be mistaken for a common cold.
Dr. Scott Strome, a head and neck cancer surgeon who is currently the dean of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, and previously was chair of head and neck surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, explained thyroid cancer in a previous interview with SurvivorNet.
"We're now able to detect thyroid disease, thyroid cancers, much earlier than we used to be able to," he says. "We tend to see it predominantly in younger women, but it can occur in both men and women. In most cases, I tell my patients that, 'Your thyroid cancer is a barnacle on the ship of life.’"
Still, he suggests finding an experienced thyroid expert for treatment. "Folks who have thyroid cancer, they need to go to a really experienced thyroid setting and have folks who really understand the disease. Those are for the most indolent type of thyroid cancers, called papillary," he says. "Thyroid cancer is a pretty interesting disease because papillary is a really indolent cancer. On the other end of the spectrum, you have what's called anaplastic thyroid cancer, which may be one of (if not the) most aggressive cancers that we see. So it's a whole spectrum of disease."
How is Thyroid Cancer Treated?
Treatments for thyroid cancer can include surgery, hormone therapy, radioactive iodine, radiation, and chemotherapy. Symptoms of thyroid cancer include the following:
Related: 7 Common Signs of Thyroid Cancer & How to Spot Them
- A lump in the neck, sometimes growing quickly
- Swelling in the neck
- Pain in the front of the neck, sometimes going up to the ears
- Hoarseness or other voice changes that do not go away
- Trouble swallowing
- Trouble breathing
- A constant cough that is not due to a cold
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