Saturday Seven

Trying something new today… the Saturday Seven. Just seven random things I’ve been thinking about this week most of which would not make up an entire blog post by themselves but are worth sharing or at least I think they are!  Link up if you want to play along!

One. In honor of ones, I realized its been a while since I’ve done an update to my 101 in 1001 list.  So here are a few items I’ve crossed off and some I’m still working on… 

• lose 25 lbs – sorry to say I’m still in the working on it phase
• Pay off car & credit cards – working on it! Only 4 more car payments!
• Go to a live musical – tickets bought for Beauty & The Beast at the Barter next week!
• Local restaurants – new one to add: Cranberry Thistle, Jonesborough, TN
• Create a calendar to track birthdays – downloaded a template to help me do this… just haven’t filled it out yet!
• Grow my hair 5in below my shoulders – currently at 4 inches
• Get a massage & get a pedicure – done on Feb 19th in Gatlinburg!
• Send mail to someone once a month – April, May, June: check!
• Read a book starting with every letter of the alphabet – new letters claimed: Bountiful Container, Outlive Your Life.
• Read a book in one day: The Final Summit
• Read 101 books – new to add: Wasted, The Secret, Grits Guide To Life, 33 Ways to Tell Your Fortune (that makes 17)
• Watch 26 movies {alphabet} & 10 classic movies I’ve never seen– working on this with help from Netflix

Two. I slept in until 8am for the first time in months. Yes, I said months. And yet I’m still exhausted… maybe it takes more than one night to get rid of sleep deprivation?
Three.  My horoscope for today reads: “Your house of career is undergoing a slow and profound change as you shift from one way of working to another.  You’ll have great potential and options as Uranus in your house of self combines with Jupiter in your house of money to bring a delicious set of planetary helpers.  Venus and the Sun in your house of words could help you write your future.”  This is more scary true than you know… more to come.
Four.  Remember the apartment debacle?  I still haven’t heard boo from the management company after they swore they would “get on it” to “rectify the situation.”  This weekend will be devoted to formulating the next line of attack.  I gave them ample time to fix things. They chose not to. Now it’s on.
Five.  Stress has been crazy lately… combined with the sleep deprivation and you get my body attacking itself… again. You can read more about that here, here, and here. Last night I noticed my parotid was pulling one of these again.  And the other symptoms of Sjogren’s are back as well… dry eyes, dry mouth, aching joints, brain fog, dry skin, fatigue.  Must manage stress to prevent flares.
Six.  My plan for this weekend is to nap and to heal… and to clean my house and do laundry. Sigh…  where did the maid go? 
Seven.  I made good on my promise.  I have tests and an endo appointment scheduled for early July.  Praying that the fears are all in my head and I get only good news.

Sigh…

Today was my 1month post-surgical check.  He liked the way my scar was looking [much better than the 1st surgery] but said it will probably get pinker before it starts to fade.  AOK with me - ‘tis turtleneck and sweater season after all!  I told him about my experience with the RAI and he seems to be the only Dr that wasn’t surprised to hear of the “no side effects” side effects.  I am scheduled for a whole body scan tomorrow morning and he said I can call him next week for the results.  He also said I need to come back in another 6 weeks for a follow-up and another neck ultrasound and that we will check my labs again to make sure my meds are the correct dose.  He also said I don’t have to keep taking my calcium supplements much longer.  Right now I'm on 1 Tums twice a day.  If you remember, I started out at 2 Tums 4 times a day after surgery because of injury to my parathyroids.

So then we turned to the topic of when I can go back to work.  I said I was thinking that after 2 weeks of being back on my thyroid meds, I should be good to go.  Dr seemed a bit hesitant and said I would still be exhausted and coming out of hypo hell at that point because my TSH is extremely high.  I bargained with him and said I could work from home when I was feeling the exhaustion and he agreed to write me the note!  So I'm set to return on October 19th as I originally planned! 

Here comes the sigh…SIGH…

If you have seen me over the last year, you know that last year I worked very hard to lose 25-30lbs over the summer.  I was feeling better than I had in a few years [aside from unexplained thyroid symptoms].  Over the holidays and such I had gained back 5-10lbs but still felt really good.

Before	After

Well since the start of this whole thyroid cancer mess in May, I have successfully gained back all but 5-10 of those hard lost pounds. What really sucks is in just one week before my RAI, I gained 10lbs!!!  Seriously?!  At that point I was eating less than 1,000 calories a day. Basically my TSH went so high that my metabolism became non-existent and all of my body functions slowed to a ridiculous point.  There were days when I didn’t even feel hungry because what I ate the day before was still there.  Yes, some of it is water retention and swelling from surgery, hypo hell, and RAI and when my TSH gets back to "normal” my metabolism will return to “normal.”  But you can bet your bippy the weight isn’t just going to magically fall off. [Another thing to liken to pregnancy?] I know that I can lose it again but I also know it is going to be a long, slow climb back to “normal.”  Thank God I haven’t sold/donated any of my bigger clothes yet!

I Am Radioactive!

Got to the hospital this morning about 6:45am and headed to the now all too familiar radiology department. I have been the teensiest tiniest bit radioactive since yesterday so I was whisked away to the Nuc Med area pretty much as soon as I walked in the doors. 

First up on the docket for today – the whole body scan!  Basically you lay on a long plank like thing that is only about 1.5-2ft wide for 45min-1hr trying not to move while the circle (camera) passes over your entire body. Then they take you to another room, aim a telescope like camera at your neck and tell you not to move for 5 minutes, then they point it at your leg and tell you the same thing.  Its all a very strange process and I realize now it is harder to be still when you are told to do so!

After the scans were done, we were taken back into the whole body scan room to meet with the Nuc Med Dr.  My parents were with me and he was slightly confused as to who the patient was (kinda uncommon to get cancer so young huh?) which I found slightly amusing.  He basically gave us an overview of what RAI is and it’s purpose – I felt like I was in kindergarten because my knowledge on the subject is much higher than his explanation, I let him continue for my parents.  If anything he told them exactly what I've told them so that was good! (I will accept my doctorate now, thank you very much!) Then he said I would be give 200 mCi’s of RAI!  Ok so 200 mCi’s is pretty much the top dose they give anyone at one time so this slightly freaked me out.  Unfortunately my brain wasn’t working fast enough to get the questions out before he was gone so we headed home for a few hours to return at 1pm for my dose. (they don’t stock this on-site)  So we went to my place and I took a nap, my parents ate some Wendy’s while I chowed on a plain baked potato, and we gathered up the last of my isolation “gear” before heading back to the hospital. 

When I returned I was once again taken right back into a little room where they brought in a lead lined capsule that contained my tiny container of 2 radioactive iodine capsules.  We then had a bit of confusion over me getting/not getting a post treatment scan so when I left I was waiting for a call back.  Well because of the confusion, my Dr called me and said they saw very little thyroid remnant left in my neck (good) and no indication of metastasis (v. good) so with the large treatment dose they expect that everything will be ablated (killed) and they didn’t see any suspicious areas that would make them need a second look with the more sensitive post treatment scan.  I will be followed of course, and the scans can be repeated at any time if my tumor markers go up so overall this plan feels comfortable by all.

So now I'm in my isolation location for the next 7 days so I don’t damage my kitties with radiation!

All Clear! (well kind of…)

I had a busy day with 2 doctor appointments! Grandpa was my chauffer to the first and mom drove me to the second.

First one was with the dentist to get my new retainer. His assistant saw my stitches and steri-strips and asked what happened to my neck (I had a diamond necklace surgically implanted so no one could steal it). My dentist knows what has been going on and he asked how I was doing and what the results were. I said I didn’t know yet but I was getting my results (hopefully) and my stitches taken out in the afternoon. Then he graciously offered to take my stitches out and I told him no way, I still wanted to like him after the appointment!

Then I had lunch with Grandpa and mom at Russ’ where they did the handoff. Then mom and I headed up to the Surgeon’s office to get my stitches pulled out and to hear the results of my pathology. He came into the room and immediately said that my right lobe and lymph node were all clear of cancer! YAY! I was still digesting this news as he pulled out the stitch. Then he did some reflex tests because of my calcium issues and gave me lab slips to check my calcium (today) and my TSH (next week). I’m still on the Tums but he did mention tapering the dose if this test comes back good!

Future plan: I'm still having the RAI because of the tumor on the left lobe - we still don’t know if it spread on that side to lymph nodes, etc. I will have a whole body scan with a tracer dose of RAI and whatever that shows determines the dosage for the real RAI. After I get the real deal RAI I will get another super sensitive whole body scan – this one will tell us if even a tiny amount of cancer went anywhere else, and the real deal RAI will kill it.

So its now a waiting game until my TSH levels go above the 30’s. (I’m starting from 0.34), at which time we can schedule the first scan and appointment with nuclear medicine (the thyroid cancer version of chemo/radiation).

	Z scar & swelling 3 days after surgery
scar & swelling 1 week after surgery with stitches removed a