Where to go from here....

So.....hey there.

Yeah, I know it's been awhile.

Sorry 'bout that. Its just that I have been waiting for the results of my full body scan. Ive been waiting for over a week now and I just got them in the mail. Apparently I'm an idiot for thinking that my doc would actually want to talk to me about the results. See, I called his office a couple of times last week thinking that he might want to talk about the scan results and whats gonna happen to me from this point forward. I figured since this is kind of the theoretical finish line to this whole thing, that maybe he would want to talk to me about it. The only callback I got was from his nurse telling me to stop calling (sort of). She said that if I had a question for the doctor that I needed to make an appointment, that the doctors don't do phone consultations. What I heard was "pay up, sucker!" I couldn't help but feel like I had suddenly hit some sort of unspoken phone call quota. That kind of pissed me off since he had explicitly told me that I could call if I had a quick question so that I wouldn't have to pay the $50 copay to talk to him for 5 minutes. I understand that he doesn't work for free, but again, this is sort of the end of this whole thing, right? Seems like he would want to actually talk.

Whatever.

They told me that they mailed the scan result which I got about a week later. According to the scan, things are as good as they can be I guess. The iodine only absorbed in "the thyroid bed" which was to be expected since thats where the cancer was known to be. There was no evidence of the cancer anywhere else so thats a good thing. As far as I know at this point, the cancer will continue to die off and the next issue to deal with is regulating my synthroid levels (synthetic thyroid hormone.) I'll let you know more as I find it out.

So, where do I go from here?

The short answer is....not very far. I say that because, while I have made a lot of progress in healing from the surgery and all of the crap that came along with it, (the recovery, the diet and radiation etc...) I still have a long way to go. I find that I still get tired easily, especially if I'm doing anything very active. Becky and I spent the weekend putting the living room back to normal and after moving some light furniture and folding some blankets, I was drained. (For those of you who don't know, my family had set up a little recovery area in the living room complete with a bed and tables so I wouldn't have to go up and down stairs after surgery.) I just don't have the stamina to do very much for very long. I know it will come back eventually, but right now I find I still tire fairly easily. Anyway, I'm getting better everyday, but I'm not back to 100%


Well, I have really enjoyed writing this blog, but I'm not really sure what to talk about without a semi-serious disease making my life difficult. I do have plans to lose a bunch of weight since my doc told me (again) that it would help me out. Now that I am finally getting some energy back i'll try harder to do that. It would be nice to not look like a manatee when i go to the pool at the gym... As far as other medical concerns go, I'm supposed to have a sleep study done soon. I'm told they do it at my house. Not sure how thats all gonna work out so, I'll let you know how that goes. Anyway, thanks again to everyone for your support and love. It really helped me get through a tough little stretch there.

I'm out.

I am a rock, I am a 3 Mile Island.

my nickname around the house, thanks to my brother-in-law

So, I had this plan that I was going to be keeping a live journal of sorts for the Radioactive Iodine. Then I realized just how boring it was. In a nutshell, here's how my last 4 days have been.


"I Wake up" I say that in quotes because even though my eyes are open, it take a couple of hours for me to actually wake up. Literally.

Eat a piece of candy I have to keep my salivary glands stimulated so as not to damage them with the radiation. Your salivary glands use iodine also.
Eat a piece of candy
Eat a piece of candy

I eat food Nothing much more to say about that.

Eat a piece of candy
Eat a piece of candy

I watch tv/movie or play video games. I would read a book, but that would involve physical movement. Im still so hypo I dont even want to turn pages. Nor do I want to be mentally taxed by reading a book. Daytime tv is mindless enough.

Eat a piece of candy
Eat a piece of candy
Eat a piece of candy

Eat a piece of candy
Eat a piece of candy
Eat a piece of candy
Eat a piece of candy

I eat food again.

brush my teeth.

consider throwing up from all the candy

I try to convince myself that im sleepy enough to actually sleep. Since im so tired from being so hypo its quite hard for me to actually fall asleep. That and the fact that I have enough sugar coursing through me to kill a diabetic with just my breath. For instance, its 2am now and I want to sleep...but its not happening right now.


So, if you are seven years old thats an awesome schedule. I however, am not seven years old. (My wife says I act like im 15) There is also lots of water and lots of time spent in the bathroom, but you dont need to hear about that. The good part is that I have had very few side effects and the ones I have had have been minimal. I didnt have much throat pain or any other localized pains really. They tell you that you could have throat pain because the radiation is killing off your thyroid but since mine was removed completely, all I have now is an empty space that I use as storage for chewy beef snacks. I was hoping to have some pains around my collar bone areas since my doc said I might still have some infected lymphnodes in that area but I dont think it hurt there. I had a bit of a head ache on day one, but not much more than that. The hardest part about all of this has been trying to avoid my wife. Literally. I have to stay atleast 6 feet away from her until about day 5. There is good news however....

Today was is my last day on the LID diet and come kick off (im a rabid LSU football fan) i will drowning myself in a bowl of piping hot queso and chips. I also get to go back on my hormone tomorrow which is arguably the more exciting part. im not sure what my TSH number (in a nutshell its a gauge for how hypothyridic one is) is anymore, the lady at the radiology place said she had never seen a number so high in her 15 years. (it was high enough that the scale either broke or the scale stopped counting. im not sure which.) Im so ready to have energy again.

Thats about it. I just wanted to write something short for a change to let everyone know whats been up. I sound like a broken record when i say this, but thank you. To all of my friends and family and anyone else who has said an encouraging word to me, it means the world to me to think that your thinking of me. It really is overwhelming to me.



Until next time, just let your SOOOUULLLLL GLOOOWWWW yall.