Human food

Asparagus omelet,  side of cytomel. I'm almost in tears in anticipation.

Nuclear Monday

The executive summary : I will get my main treatment dose of I131 -- 100 mCi on Monday. Woo hoo the end is in sight!

It's been about 3 weeks since I've had any Thyroid replacement now. I've been eating a low iodine diet for about 2 weeks. I'm not having the best time of my life but I'm not exactly curled up in a ball in bed either.

I went to Dr Haugen in Denver at UCH (University Hospital) a few weeks ago after having been referred to him for a second opinion by my endocrinologist Dr Lori Book. He's a great resource to have so nearby because he's actually one of the authors of the industry standard for treatment protocols for thyroid cancer. He recommended a scan prior to treatment to guide I131 dosing. 

I got a blood test on Monday revealing a TSH of 130 which is quite sufficient for the minimum requirement of 30 in order to proceed -- very hypothyroid! Then on Wednesday I received the low dose scan pill day and this morning I got a gamma body scan to determine the amount of cancerous tissue in my body -- whatever took up the tracer. The news is good, they only found a little uptake in my thyroid area and didn't see anything in my neck. In accordance with Dr Haugen's recommendations that puts me on the low end of the I131 dosing. 100 mCi vs what I was on track to receive without the scan : 200 mCi. That's good because there's a lower chance of side effects from the treatment.

So Monday I'll go in and swallow my pill and let it work it's cancer killing magic! It also means that soon I'll be off this crappy restrictive diet and back on thyroid replacement meds... back to the land of the living!

Being off of thyroid meds is not a lot of fun. You've got low energy because thyroid hormone is what regulates your metabolism. Your thought processes slow down. I'm tired, but it really hasn't hit me as bad as the stories I've heard. I took one day off work. There have been ups and downs but nothing awful. 

I think the low iodine diet is worse. You can't eat a laundry list of things that have iodine in them. The idea is to get any cancer cells good and ready to suck up the radioactive iodine treatment. Iodine is an artificial additive to most salt. Basically it prevents you from eating out at all and from using any prepared foods. You have to cook everything from scratch because even canned foods all have salt included! So in addition to being tired you have to spend hours cooking meals from absolute scratch.

Anyway shortly after Monday I'll be able to resume thyroid replacement and iodine. I'm planning a binge dinner in celebration :)