Birthday Update: Three Months!

Birth Deets: 21.5in, 8lbs 12oz 
Prior Month Deets: 11lbs 13oz, 23.5 inches
Height: ? No doctor’s appointment this month!
Weight: ? No doctor’s appointment this month!
Nicknames: Maddie, Miss Me, kiddo widdo, babydoll
Exciting Events: Let’s see… Miss M met her great grandpa S!  He came down with Grammy and Grampy K specifically to meet Miss Madeline.  If you remember a while back he was quite sick and had been in the hospital most of this year.  It was so great to see him looking so well!  

Also?  Mommy and daddy celebrated their FIRST wedding anniversary! To celebrate we took a trip to Maddie’s very first zoo – in Knoxville - and she spent the night in her very first hotel room! She also saw a bit of Knoxville and ate some PF Changs!
What She Does: She’s still sleeping through the night and we couldn’t be happier with that!  She still prefers standing over sitting and is getting less wobbly at it every day. She holds her upper body up when you carry her but can only sit up by herself for about a second before tipping under the weight of her noggin.  She’s also starting to notice her hands and feet and just the other day tried grabbing her toes with a puzzled look on her face. She’s been talking (cooing) up a storm and has recently started shrieking like a velociraptor.  I swear I’ve heard her say “mama” a few times but never with a witness… until TODAY!  Today she said “MOM” very clearly while I was on the phone with the hubs! He even paused and said “Did she just say mom?!” Yup! My daughter is clearly an intelligence of genius proportions as well as a dollface. 

Happy birthday baby girl… Mommy and Daddy feel so blessed to have you with us!

You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby!

Four years.  Four years.

It’s been exactly four years since I took my I-131 radioactive iodine treatment for my papillary thyroid cancer. My oh my, how my life has changed since then!

I’d like to say I haven’t given cancer another thought since that day, but truth is, I think about it every day. Every morning I wake up and take my thyroid replacement pill first thing and wait an hour before eating or drinking anything that might affect the absorption.  During my pregnancy my daily dose was changed 5 times to meet the increasing demands from my body and from Maddie. Since her birth 2 months ago, my dose has been changed twice as my body readjusts to my “new normal.” Without this one little daily pill, I would slowly go more and more hypothyroid and eventually my mind and body would shut down.  I would be so screwed in a zombie apocalypse scenario.

I have just one more year until I can say I’ve been cancer free for the magical five years = cured mark.  In this upcoming year, I have plans to undergo a whole body scan once my daughter is weaned.  Once again I will have to go hypo on purpose.  Once again I will have to take some RAI and go into isolation for a short time – this time from my husband and daughter – to protect them from my radioactive self.  Hopefully this time nothing shows up on the scan in my thyroid bed or in my lungs.

If I think on it too long, it terrifies me. So I try not to let my mind go there.  I have a long life ahead of me – including seeing my great-grandkids grow up – and I'm positive there are many adventures awaiting me!