After ingesting two capsules of radioactive iodine-- which didn't occur to me as strange until the technician pointed it out to his attending student-- I didn't think I had anything to worry about. I had already asked the doctor about when I should start chewing gum and sucking on candies to keep my mouth from getting super dry only to be delighted with hearing that could start in two-hours time.
This morning, I rushed my way to the hospital and I had to make a detour visit to the Nuclear Medicine Dept. to pick up a requisition form for a stat Pregnancy Test. This would be the kind of question I'm asked all too regularly now. For example, every time they want to xray me or CT scan me or give me any level of radioactive isotope to see if the cancer has spread? Good nows, BTW: it hasn't.
Had a nice little social moment with the dude at the blood lab yesterday. Was that same smiling face I made chuckle over a month ago when I had my first visit with the oncologist up here in Ottawa. That was my first conversation I had with anyone as to the sexiness of hospital vampires versus the standard local hospital or walk-in clinic variety of brute with a thick pointy syringe-type needle that can swallow innocent little children whole. Sexy vampires feel like the tiniest of pin pricks and then the crimson trickles slowly but gracefully down a curvaceous and alluring tube. Upon reaching the threshold, it falls into a slender welcoming mother like vessel with such ease. I often times find myself getting lost within the waves of colour only to get interrupted by the all too famous denoument: "Press here." So I held the small gauze pad to the entry wound without any sense of panic or urgency. I was truly just relieved to have this part out of the way.
Feeling a little faint, my father and I rushed off to pick up a pair of hinged antique doors that my mother had been using as a display piece at her store downtown. I spoiled myself, buying two containers of organic blueberries and eating all the low-iodine goodness I could get into my body in an effort to make up for the fact that I had not eaten a proper low-iodine meal before coming to the inevitable. I'm borrowing my Mom's electric tea-kettle and the microwave will be coming home later so I can set up for life in one corner of the house while my sister, mother, and our three cats are as far away from me as possible. (That's what we're using the pair of hinged doors for: making a barrier so the cats can't come near me til it's safe for everyone.) Rushed back to the Nuclear Medicine Clinic... Found out I wasn't pregnant... and then I quickly but surely got some radio-activity happening inside me-- medically supervised, of course!
Flash forward to my present radioactive self... The iodine must be doing something-- radioactively speaking-- I mean: I am colder than I have ever felt in June: Honest! This morning, I felt like I had a swollen neck-- without any glands visibly remaining-- and I feel encouraged. So, I'm happy to report that I am not feeling comfortable anymore without an effort and even then I don't feel all that warm or energized at all.
I am exhausted and glad that I have to wear a touque and mittens to sleep in because it was getting really silly when I found myself trying to make due without a thyroid and looking at it like it was inconvenient and I would just have to bear down and take it like a... woman? I am super-thang and I will not make myself uncomftable in the face of circumstances that claim to be beyond my control... Nobody can see how silly I look anyway? I'm in solitary confinement for goodness-sake-- self-imposed!
N' that's how I'm surviving... MDB
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