Eight Week Recap
Eight weeks to catch up on – time really is slipping away. Part of the last 8 weeks seemed to last an eternity (I think we can all guess what part that was) and other weeks have literally felt like only a day has passed. April 14th I started my RAI treatment in hopes to kill any remaining thyroid cells, as well as any remaining cancer that might be in those cells. In all honesty, I was pretty damn nervous about swallowing a pill of radio-active iodine. I don’t know, I guess it just didn’t sit well with me that I was swallowing a pill that is essentially posion. But I did it. I walked into the hospital, swallowed a pill that could not even be touched without wearing heavy duty gloves and then they took readings of my body with a geiger counter. I sat in a little chair in a freezing room for an hour to make sure I kept the pill down. Then they slapped a bright orange wristband on me that read “Radioactive Material” in big letters and sent me home. The wristband sits on my office desk, along with the dozen or so others from my various surgeries and procedures. Every once in a while I glance over at the bright orange one and laugh a little. I have now been able to find the humor that for a short time I was once considered hazardous material.
As soon as I returned home I entered isolation in my bedroom. The girls stayed in a hotel for the next five days with my mom and Brian alternating staying with them. After they returned home, I still stayed in my room for another week. And for a month after treatment I stayed well away from the girls – not preparing meals, not sitting in the same room as them. My mom took Maddie back to her house after I left the confines of my room and with Katelin in school, it was not that difficult to keep my distance. Isolation was difficult but thankfully I have a large master suite witha very large balcony off of it. Brian set up my office in my room so once I was past the horrible side effects I was able to get some work done. And after a week, my mom and Brian were able to visit with me periodically. Regardless, two weeks in one room can be a bit maddening.
I was not quite sure what to expect from the RAI treatment. The doctor in Nuclear Medicine ran down the list of side effects with me and I pretty much ended up experiencing every one of them. I am not going to sugar coat it, the first 72 hours of the RAI treatment was absolutely horrendous. Even more so since I went through it in isolation. I am not going to go into the specific side effects, but add to it the solitude and mental status of being treated like a leper, and it was the most difficult 72 hours of my life. But again, I did it! I do have some residual side effects still, the most odd one being my lose of the ability to taste. That started about two weeks after the treatment and I started to get some sense of taste back a week ago. I am also having pain in my limbs on a pretty continual basis. It can get quite excruciating and keeps me awake at night which is difficult in itself because my body is so fatigued. I still remain positive because I know this is all temporary and am working with my doctors to help lessen the side effects.
I have spent quite a bit of my time back at the hospital though in the past couple of weeks. Of course, as my luck would have it, my thyroid is gone and I still cannot swallow. While we would not have found the cancer without the problem swallowing, in the end, it was not what was causing it. I absolutely love it though when I call the hospital to schedule an appointment, give them my name, social, etc. and they always ask, “Have you been seen in outpatient radiology before?” Seriously…have I been seen it outpatient radiology before? You would think as many times as I have been there, when I call they can pull up my patient history and see a picture of the tent I almost set up because we were practically living there. Or the fact that I might to have relinquish custody of my first born child to settle the massive hospital bill I have run up there. Regardless, I had more tests and it seems that the difficultly swallowing is reflux so they put me on new medications and if it doesn’t get better in the next couple of months I get to joyously visit outpatient radiology again.
I also went and had a body scan after the completion of the RAI treatment. The scan showed that the cancer did not spread beyond the thyroid region which is wonderful news. It also showed that the radio-active iodine did target the remaining thyroid cells and should be doing their job. My doctor told me to enjoy life and come back in 6 months for another body scan. I will have to ingest more radio-active iodine but at a much smaller dosage not requiring any sort of isolation. At that point in time they will be able to tell me if I am cancer free or not. If not, then we discuss more treatment options.
So that’s what we are trying to do – live life as normally as possible. That’s not to say cancer is still not an every day for us. I would be lying if I said it did not stick in the back of my mind and I am sure it is the same for Brian. For me, looking in the mirror is a constant reminder combined with the residual side effects. But laughter has returned to the house and there are more and more moments every day that we seemingly forget, for at least that brief moment, that I am sick. The girls are still a bit wary of everything but they are starting to get back into a rountine. Maddie still asks everytime I go to the doctor (which is quite a bit) if I am having surgery on my cancer. And if I so much as have a headache, Katelin gets very concerned and starts making Get Well Soon cards. But we are open with them and reassure them that Mommy is getting stronger every day. I do worry though about the anxiety this has caused them and hope it is not something they will continue to caring with them in their little hearts. My wish is that someday in the near future, this difficult time that we have been through will seem like it is part of the distant past.
