TGIF!!!

I am so glad that the weekend is here! It seems like it has been a very long week. Had a lot to worry about besides my health. We have a concert for our youth symphony on Monday, and a presentation that I give to the district on Tuesday. Needless to say I am looking forward to next weekend...lol!


Been having a lot of problems with the lack of energy. Mostly because of my Thyroid levels. When I was diagnosed with Thyroid cancer Sept. 2008 the most frequent comments I got were, "That’s the best cancer to get," or "If I had to choose which kind of cancer I had to have I would choose that one." Granted it is easily treated but I believe that there are no good kinds of cancers. Even the easiest treated ones leaves scars behind on the survivor, but physically and emotionally. I under went two separate surgeries to remove the thyroid completely, and then went through Iodine Radiation. I had to take a little blue pill (which cost $11,000!!! So grateful for insurance), which made me radioactive. They even had a Geiger counter (measure that amount of radioactivity in the surround environment) and one of the assistance said I was hot. I know he was referring to the readings on the counter, but I couldn't resist. I thanked him for the "complement." You know what is so sad? It is really hard to find people in the medical world that has a sense of humor. No one laughed at that comment or when I said "I'm just radiant!" Sigh! Honestly, I think humor can be one of the best ways to cope with a sickness, but that could just be me and my insane ways of thinking. Anyways...that lovely little blue pill forced me into isolation for almost two weeks because of the radiation that I put off. Everything that I touched would become radioactive for a time. I was tempted to go to the Cancer center at the hospital and give out hugs to the patients. Free radiation treatment! (Another one of my jokes that the medical staff wouldn’t respond to.) The only human contact that I would get were the few brief moments when my mother would bring me my meals.

Still don’t believe me about how hazardous I was? Right after I took the little neon blue pill I had to sit in a lead lined room for about 30 minutes to make sure I wouldn’t throw it up. (Eww, I know, gross!) I was told that the first thing I need to do was suck on cough or lemon drops so it would sit in my saliva glands (guess radiation has a heyday with saliva glands). So I pulled a cough drop out of my pocket and was about to put the wrapper in the garbage can next to me. A nurse comes in and freaks out! She ordered me to put the wrapper in my pocket and take it home. Then she tells me about how a woman a year ago sneezed in a tissue after starting the treatment and threw the tissue in the garbage at the hospital. The tissue was in a contamination unit for SIX MONTHS before it could be discarded. And to think that my body was full of the stuff.

Once I wasn't a hazard to everyone else's health around me I started the long process of balancing out my Thyroid levels. One of the aftereffects of Thyroid cancer is relying on a pill to keep you alive. Back in the olden days people died from Thyroid problems. So, the doctor started me out on Synthroid, a synthetic form of the Thyroid hormone T4 which the body then uses to create T3. Talk about roller coaster, one month my levels were so low it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed, and then the next month they would raise it slightly and my levels would be too high. I would get the worse cases of insomnia and anxiety. The doctors just couldn't get it right.

While helping out with the victims of the mud slide here in Logan this summer I met another worker that had suffered my same fate. She told me about Armour which is a natural from of the Thyroid hormone that comes from Bovines. She had great success, so I looked into it. Honestly, I would rather go a natural way than pump my body full of synthetic stuff. My doctor put me on it and with in one month my levels balanced out. Yeah! I was feeling great, until school started, and then the exhaustion started setting in again. Stress can be a huge inhibitor of the body being able to absorb Thyroid hormone so I decided to up my dosages just a little, and it really helped. After my routine blood work and office visit to the doctor I told him about my higher dosage and he freaked! Told me it was too high, and that I as running the risk of osteoporosis. I lowered the dosage and I am exhausted again. Argh! The doctor is going to try a different approach. He is going to lower my Armour and then add Cytomel (just T3) and see if that will give me the boost that I need. I will be starting that Monday and I hope it works.