March 30, 2006

TRENTON: Three Edgewood teens battling rare cancer

They act as their own support group

By Meghan Crosby

TRENTON — Lauren Thorman thought she was alone, until the day she met Bryce Tucker, just three lockers down.

Lauren and Bryce, both 14-year-old freshmen at Edgewood High School, are living with thyroid cancer.

The third is an Edgewood senior, Amber McIntosh, who also attends Greentree Academy for nursing.

Each year, only 350 children and adolescents are diagnosed with the cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Three of them are living in the small, close-knit city of Trenton.

Like Lauren and Bryce, Amber was diagnosed with thyroid cancer within the past 18 months. Because thyroid cancer is so rare in adolescents, Amber couldn’t imagine there were other teens in her own high school going through the same thing.

It was word of mouth that brought the three girls — and their parents — together.

Now, they act as their own support group and have even created a Web site — www.thykidz.com — to educate people across the world of the signs and symptoms of thyroid cancer in youth. Lauren, who created the Web site, now is gaining national attention for her efforts to educate others on her disease.

Lauren, Amber and Bryce will have to take medicine every day for the rest of their lives and live with the chance the cancer may recur or spread. They also will have to undergo radiation treatments and have full body scans and magnetic resonance imaging scans every six months to monitor the disease.

The American Cancer Society estimates about 30,000 new cases of thyroid cancer will be diagnosed in the United States this year. Of the new cases, over 22,000 will occur in women.

Lauren’s story

It was supposed to be a typical, yearly physical for 2004.

But when Lauren’s new pediatrician felt a suspicious lump on her neck, her mother said she knew something was wrong.

Lauren immediately was scheduled to have a thyroid ultrasound.

A week later, the day after Thanksgiving, she was in surgery to remove the tumor.

When her cancer diagnosis was confirmed, Lauren said she nearly fainted. She began wearing turtleneck sweaters to hide her neck from friends at school.

She spent Christmas that year isolated from family because her radiation treatments put them at risk.

Lauren recently underwent her third surgery for the cancer. It spread to her lymph nodes, which she had removed.

“It’s an ongoing thing. The next most common place for it to spread is the lungs,” said Stephanie Carper, Lauren’s mother. “But she just had a CAT scan of the lungs and it was clean.”

Since her diagnosis more than a year ago, Lauren said she has adapted to living with cancer and now is using her experience to empower others.

She currently is a national semi-finalist in the Build-A-Bear “Huggable Heroes” contest for her cancer awareness community service.

“Now, I think everyone at school knows,” Lauren said. “I’m all about telling everybody. Just ask.”

Amber’s story

She had just snagged a job in the dietary department at Garden Manor and was undergoing a physical that was required for the position.

That physical changed her life.

After feeling a “knot” in the thyroid area of her neck, a doctor suggested Amber have it checked in three months with her family doctor.

But that didn’t settle right with Amber’s mom Melissa Snethen.

So she had it checked two weeks later and was diagnosed with thyroid cancer on March 15, 2005.

It’s been a tough journey since that day.

“I didn’t want anybody to know, or to treat me differently,” Amber said. “I don’t want sympathy.”

She remembers crying when she saw proofs of her senior photographs.

They hadn’t been retouched yet, and the surgical scar on her neck was visible.

Over the course of a year, Amber has grown more optimistic.

“Everybody at my school knows about it now,” she said. “I want to put it out there. It doesn’t scare me because I know more about it now.”

Bryce’s story

Thyroid cancer is far less common in men than women, and it’s rare in adolescents. So when 14-year-old Bryce was diagnosed with the disease, he was literally, one in a million.

In September 2004, Bryce discovered a lump on his neck and underwent an MRI that diagnosed him with the cancer.

He remembers being scared at first, but said as soon as he found out the cancer could be removed — and since detected early should not be life-threatening — his feelings changed.

For treatment, Bryce takes three pills a day and has had therapy during which he had to drink radiation treatment.

Bryce has accepted his condition and knows that through medication and diligent monitoring of the cancer, he will be OK.

His mother, Debbie Tucker, is having a more difficult time.

On the Thykidz Web site, there is a section where visitors can read each of the teens’ stories.

Bryce’s story is the only one missing from that Web site.

He said it’s because his mom can’t get through writing about it without breaking down in tears.