Don't underestimate Hashimoto's disease- my story

Hello everyone-
I am a thyroid cancer survivor. At age 43, I began feeling sluggish and noticed my hair was falling out. One day, I slept for 20 out of 24 hours, you couldn't have woken me if the house was on fire! That night, I woke up startled and felt a golf-ball sized lump in the front of my throat. After much rigamoroll w/ the medical community ("you're going thru menopause", "you're depressed about gaining weight") and other such BS from doctors, I finally pushed hard enough to be tested & biopsied. Lo 'n behold, I was dx with papillary thyroid cancer. Later I was re-diagnosed w/ diffuse sclerosing variant of papillary thyca, a rare but stubborn form still in the papillary dx of thyca. Long story short, I am now 3 years and 3 months out. I live in a rural area of Western Massachusetts (USA) and was misdiagnosed, ignored, and when finally dx with thyca, told that my symptoms "couldn't have presented the way that I say" and almost went thru surgery that would have greatly diminished the quality of my life. I also JUST learned (3 years and 3 months out) that when my cancerous thyroid was removed, I had advanced Hashimoto's! I was never given this info before, so I looked into it. I saw some reports that up to 53% of thyca survivors are found to have hashimoto's when they are having their thyroids removed, and most of them don't know it! My endocrine doc said she believes I had hashimoto's for a "very long time", that my mother also had it, and other female relatives too. I want to tell all of you to not let any doctor treat your hashimoto's like a "minor" illness, it CAN lead to thyca! I also want to urge all of you facing thyca and other serious thyroid issues to get yourself to a major cancer/thyroid center FAST! If I had not gone to Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, I would't be here today, or I would be seriously disfigured and still battling with these boondock docs!
I'm sure you can sense the bitterness in my post- my family and I were literally making arrangements for "when I wasn't here", and the reason I was initially told by local docs that my symptoms couldn't be as I said was because I had a rare, agressive type of thyca that was misdiagnosed. PLEASE consult with a cancer center that has experienced ALL types of thyca and thyroid diseases-it literally saved my life.
You CAN get thru this!
Love, cherry