The surgery is about 4 weeks gone, and I'm thinking that the surgeon, along with my thyroid, decided to remove my clock chip as well, because I have absolutely no sense of the passage of time.
I'm healing up well; the scar is getting a touch puckered from the subdermal stitches. I can move my head in all directions but extreme up. That's ok; there's nothing worthwhile on the high shelves anyway.
4 weeks. Crazy. Week one was pure recovery and pain relief. They gave me a buttload of morphine, but I only took one; the side effects just weren't worth it, so I chose to abuse my liver with acetaminophen instead. It worked out just as well, but with less nausea.
Week two started off with me desperate to get home, but a dead car battery left me stranded. My brother took me home the next day, and the day after, he got the car started, and I took the T over. Driving was unpleasant, but it was good to have my freedom back. I had my home, my car and a healthy appetite, and all there was to do was heal up and find a job. I started getting calls from recruiters, but my voice was a wreck. I had a phone interview that I had to cancel because I had no voice. Ah well.
About 11 days after the surgery, I received a call regarding the pathology results. Let's just say that it was less than stellar.
The day after I got the call, I had a face to face interview in Burlington. I met with 5 different people. Each one was desperately curious about what my old company did, so I spent the first 10 minutes of each meeting discussing cancer research. Yay, just what I want to be talking about. Needless to say, I totally and utterly bombed that interview.
Fast forward - met with my new, highly recommended endocrinologist last Monday who explained the treatment plan. After laying everything out, he stated that if I were his own brother, this is the treatment plan he would put him through. Great!
But he never said whether he actually LIKES his brother.
As of yesterday, I've been on a low iodine diet in prep for the radioactive iodine. The goal is to starve any remaining thyroid cells in my body so that they suck up the radioactive stuff, poisoning them and causing an untimely (for them) demise. Poor thyroid cells. Oh wait, on second though, die, you little bastards, die!
Now, if you've ever had a specific dietary limitation, you know just how difficult shopping can be. Shopping for no/low iodine foods just sucks! No dairy, mainly because the dairy industry cleans teats with iodine and a significant amount gets into the foods supply (which is generally OK because the vast majority of the population needs the iodine supplement to avoid goiters and other thyroid issues). Anything prepared with salt is suspect because there's no way to be sure that the salt is iodized. Anything from the sea is out, including sea salt, carageenan and other kelp derivatives. No soy products. No egg yolks. No milk chocolate. No non-dairy creamer. Limited meats and grains.
I was feeling OK about the diet in general until I realized: no creamer? Black tea and coffee?? EW! So I looked into rice milk - every brand contains sea salt. ARGH! Then, it occurred to me - coconut milk is creamy! So, later, I try coffee or tea with coconut milk. I hope it's not gross.
So, in two weeks, I take my first (and hopefully last) dose of Iodine-131. The half-life is 8 days. I can't be around kids, and I can't sleep with my cats OR sleep with my cats, so they get locked away in the living room. I can't sit in a car with anyone for over 30 minutes or spend time in a room for more than an hour. I shit you not, spending too much time with me will possibly give you cancer (I'm pretty sure that's been said of me before ;)
I can't say what the future will bring. No matter what comes, I have to live today, so there's no sense in burying my head in the sand. So, here's to living in interesting times.
I'm healing up well; the scar is getting a touch puckered from the subdermal stitches. I can move my head in all directions but extreme up. That's ok; there's nothing worthwhile on the high shelves anyway.
4 weeks. Crazy. Week one was pure recovery and pain relief. They gave me a buttload of morphine, but I only took one; the side effects just weren't worth it, so I chose to abuse my liver with acetaminophen instead. It worked out just as well, but with less nausea.
Week two started off with me desperate to get home, but a dead car battery left me stranded. My brother took me home the next day, and the day after, he got the car started, and I took the T over. Driving was unpleasant, but it was good to have my freedom back. I had my home, my car and a healthy appetite, and all there was to do was heal up and find a job. I started getting calls from recruiters, but my voice was a wreck. I had a phone interview that I had to cancel because I had no voice. Ah well.
About 11 days after the surgery, I received a call regarding the pathology results. Let's just say that it was less than stellar.
The day after I got the call, I had a face to face interview in Burlington. I met with 5 different people. Each one was desperately curious about what my old company did, so I spent the first 10 minutes of each meeting discussing cancer research. Yay, just what I want to be talking about. Needless to say, I totally and utterly bombed that interview.
Fast forward - met with my new, highly recommended endocrinologist last Monday who explained the treatment plan. After laying everything out, he stated that if I were his own brother, this is the treatment plan he would put him through. Great!
But he never said whether he actually LIKES his brother.
As of yesterday, I've been on a low iodine diet in prep for the radioactive iodine. The goal is to starve any remaining thyroid cells in my body so that they suck up the radioactive stuff, poisoning them and causing an untimely (for them) demise. Poor thyroid cells. Oh wait, on second though, die, you little bastards, die!
Now, if you've ever had a specific dietary limitation, you know just how difficult shopping can be. Shopping for no/low iodine foods just sucks! No dairy, mainly because the dairy industry cleans teats with iodine and a significant amount gets into the foods supply (which is generally OK because the vast majority of the population needs the iodine supplement to avoid goiters and other thyroid issues). Anything prepared with salt is suspect because there's no way to be sure that the salt is iodized. Anything from the sea is out, including sea salt, carageenan and other kelp derivatives. No soy products. No egg yolks. No milk chocolate. No non-dairy creamer. Limited meats and grains.
I was feeling OK about the diet in general until I realized: no creamer? Black tea and coffee?? EW! So I looked into rice milk - every brand contains sea salt. ARGH! Then, it occurred to me - coconut milk is creamy! So, later, I try coffee or tea with coconut milk. I hope it's not gross.
So, in two weeks, I take my first (and hopefully last) dose of Iodine-131. The half-life is 8 days. I can't be around kids, and I can't sleep with my cats OR sleep with my cats, so they get locked away in the living room. I can't sit in a car with anyone for over 30 minutes or spend time in a room for more than an hour. I shit you not, spending too much time with me will possibly give you cancer (I'm pretty sure that's been said of me before ;)
I can't say what the future will bring. No matter what comes, I have to live today, so there's no sense in burying my head in the sand. So, here's to living in interesting times.
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