A much enjoyed 90210 marathon later, I made it through the radioactive period and went home. I have been taking my thyroid medicine for about 4 or 5 weeks now and am definitely feeling improvement. I am not 100%, but at least I am not daydreaming about putting the choker-hold on myself just to get a little shut eye.
I had a follow up appointment with my doctor today, and let me tell you that getting there was an adventure in and of itself. I drove my one-year-old to my mom's house and ventured to the appointment with my preschooler. Though I have to admit that Rowen was quite the trooper in going with me, a 5-hour excursion for a 45-minute doctor appointment wasn't really on my bucket list. I think I would have rather donated a kidney.
My doctor gave me some good news though. She thinks it's pretty likely that the cancer is gone. They took some blood to check for my thyroglobulin level (can you say that word without thinking of Slimer from Ghostbusters?) which will indicate whether any cancer remains. I should know the results next week. She said the numbers looked good even before the RAI treatment, so things were looking hopeful. I'm sorry, could you repeat that? My 4-year-old just said he is an apple tree that got cut down and fell on me. I hope you don't mind if he is doing a Peter Pan off your exam table too. She also said I probably wouldn't have to be deprived of my thyroid medicine or be subjected to the low-iodine diet again. Good thing because I would rather have opted to donate my other kidney.
I still don't have my sense of taste back to normal yet, as the radiation pretty well obliterated that. I am also pretty foggy and tired, but I really can't complain. I can eat pizza now in place of rice cakes. So what if I can't really taste it? I'll take that over that low-iodine diet, which pretty much did me in. I barely pulled out the last day of it. I thought it fitting that I celebrated the end of the diet by throwing up my last meal. Good-bye bland, welcome back taste... sort of.
I will be eager to get my thyroglobulin (eh-hem, proton pack) results back. That will be the telling thing to this whole ordeal. So long as my levels remain undetectable, I think I will be in the clear. Because the final results of the radiation treatment can't really be understood until a year later (uh, did she say a year?), I really won't be doing much in terms of treatment anyway until next February.
God really has been pivotal in all of this. I'm not even talking about a healing from the cancer. I am talking about what He's been showing me all along. Prayer is powerful. God if faithful. He is my comforter and my provider. I understood these things to a greater degree even before the good news started pouring in. That's a "Yay God" if I've ever heard one.
