Dear reader(s),
Well, Radioactive Girl is now officially radioactive. Not nearly as radioactive as we had initially planned, but at least the blog title now applies to my actual life. Hooray!
No superpowers yet. But they only gave me about 5 millicuries (mCi) of I-131 this time, so I think the best I can hope for on that front is the super-ability to grow my fingernails 10% faster than before. Never fear, reader(s), I'm sure the flying and mind-reading are yet to come.
I'm going to explain what's going on with this one more time, a little more carefully, because it is a bit confusing.
The initial plan for last week and this week was for me to get a treatment dose of radioactive iodine (I-131). That would have been around 175 mCi - enough to ablate any leftover thyroid cancer cells in my body and thus treat said cancer. But, after my weird ultrasound and TG levels my endocrinologist thinks my cancer is hanging out at some undisclosed location in my body, rather than just my neck, so instead of going in blind with the RAI treatment she decided to do a diagnostic dose (the aforementioned 5 mCi of I-131) instead.
The reason this is confusing is that I-131 is used both to detect and to treat thyroid cancer. I probably should have just said that somewhere before. Sorry, reader(s). Because thyroid cells take up iodine so consistently doctors can use I-131 to blow them up AND to give smaller doses to trace where they are in the body. As you will remember from my explanation of TG levels, for my purposes thyroid tissue = thyroid cancer, so all they have to do to find my cancer is give me a little tracer dose of RAI and then scan me a few days later to see where the I-131 shows up in my body. Which is exactly the process we began today.
This "scan dose" situation is pretty common, and even when/if they finish treating my actual cancer I will have to have it done every year or so for the next 3-5 years to make sure my cancer doesn't recur. Right now, that 3-5 years seems like it will never come. But I'm still hoping that one glorious day I will never have to do any of this stupid crap ever again. *le sigh*
Now I spend the next three days avoiding fun, food, and friends as I wait for the iodine to uptake. Scan is on Thursday morning, and hopefully by late Thursday or early Friday we'll have some idea of what's actually going on. Boyfriend gets into town on Wednesday, so at least that's something to look forward to. Keep checking, 'cause I'll probably be bored enough to keep posting.
Living up to my name,
RG
Hi, This is so very interesting. Thanks for making everything easy for laymen like me to understand. When I asked your Dad how you were doing he said to check out your blog. I am so glad I did. The diet sure does suck! I would be very unhappy if I could not eat dairy. Cheese and sour cream are why I eat Mexican food! AJ seems to have a knack for food; maybe he can use fresh herbs to make the lack of salt more palatable. Please keep telling us how you are doing and know we are thinking of you. Love, Aunt Robi
ReplyDeleteRobi,
ReplyDeleteYeah, giving up dairy is pretty awful. I am allowed to have kosher salt though, so I can just add that to things and they taste alright. As well as lots of herbs and spices, which my brothers have indeed been helping out with. Thanks for reading! I'm glad you are enjoying it. Tell everyone I say hi :)
We love you Radio Isolation girl, whoever you are....
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