Radioactive Quarantine: Here we go..

First of all: thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou for all of the outstanding book, movie and activity suggestions. More on what has been keeping me busy in a minute, but I wanted to make sure that if you only read one thing, it was that I THANK YOU for your thoughtful messages and suggestions!

Since my last post, I have done quite a bit of waiting. I don't like idle time, though, so I certainly was not waiting in my house. Between appointments and bloodwork, the girls and I did some preparing for the holidays and tried to get out and go for walks before I was relegated to solitary confinement. The girls have been handling all of this extremely well and Amelia loves to see my bandaids when I get home (which makes her more courageous than her very squeamish father). After a few lengthy waiting room experiences, I finally packed an "Appointment Tote" containing a few snacks, some of my own magazines (thanks, Kim!), my smartphone, and a small knitting project. Of course, now that I am somewhat prepared, I haven't had as many long waits -- go figure!

One of the things we had been hoping for was that my TSH (a thyroid hormone) would be high enough that I could avoid the painful and expensive injection alternative. If you take out someone's thyroid and/or they stop taking their thyroid replacement medication and/or the thyroid is not working as hard as it should, the body responds by making more of something called TSH (thyroid-stimulating-hormone). So they took out my thyroid, I stopped taking the medication, and we hoped the number would come up to 30. At 30, your body is ready for the radioactive iodine treatment. Week 1, the number was 14, which was very promising.. but at Week 2 we were only at 18, so injections it was. Alternatively, I could have waited a few more weeks for the TSH to come up on its own, but then we ran the risk of these December treatments and followup scans running into Amelia's birthday, Christmas, and (importantly) the New Year. Certainly we will have plenty of fun followups and things in 2013, but I prefer to pack as many as possible into this deductible-satistfied 2012. And as it turned out, the injections in my rear end were not as painful as I would have imagined, but as one of my friends reminded me: "I wouldn't say that they weren't painful until you see the bill for them." Funny.

In addition to the pokes, my radiation oncologist added two additional medications to my regimen to prepare for radioactive iodine treatment: lithium and pilocarpine. Quick story: When I was in pharmacy school, I did a summer internship in a community pharmacy. The pharmacist used to say that he was going to sweep the pharmacy floors every evening and the interns had to try any tablets or capsules he found and try to guess what they were based off of how they made them feel. He was joking (I think??) because none of us ever did this, but this story certainly stuck in my memory this past week.

When I picked up my prescriptions, I  glazed over the information I had seen a hundred times, "may cause upset stomach if taken on empty stomach.." .. "may cause blurred vision, use caution when operating a vehicle.." Pharmacies are mandated to give you this laundry list of side effects that could possibly happen.. it is so extensive that I might bet that you can find "nausea" listed for ANY medication. I knew this stuff. I knew these medications. But I didn't. In my case, lithium is certainly not anything hope to ever be on again. The first couple of days were fine (thank goodness, because we were able to fully enjoy and celebrate the wedding of our dear friends!!) but by day 2.5 or 3, I was dizzy and nauseous to the point that thinking about taking my next dose made me dizzy and nauseous. Last evening was my final dose, and I am just now starting to feel less dizzy.... and more capable to jump into one of the books that I brought along!

For those who are wondering, the lithium was used to augment the radioactive iodine treatment. It takes some time to build up to a therapeutic level of lithium in the blood stream, so I started it five days before treatment. There are frequent blood tests to monitor if levels are too low or too high, and once that was fine tuned I was ready for treatment. The pilocarpine is used to protect the glands from radioactive iodine. It helps to flush out radioactive iodine from the salivary and sweat glands. It can cause side effects like flushing, sweating, et cetera; but the most bothersome-but-expected side effect was excess saliva. Nausea + Excess Saliva made for an overall unpleasant couple of days. But that's done now, so hooray for that!

So, I'm radioactive right now. Apparently. I don't feel any different than I did when I walked into that metal walled room, but I trust that something is going on. The nuclear treatment portion of this process was quite streamlined: walk in. get pregnancy test. wait for results. sign wavier saying you won't get pregnant for at least a year because you might harm baby. go over rules of being radioactive. take pill. go hide in proverbial cave for 8 days.

Now, if you have to be locked in a room for over a week, I hope you have an awesome sister with an adorable little studio apartment who is willing to displace herself. Isn't she a great decorator?

As I mentioned.. I'm feeling better today. Monday and Tuesday were not my favorite. Wednesday and Thursday I was very dizzy and nauseous, so I watched some mindless television and a few mindless movies. Today I am starting to feel more like myself! I have a stack of books and articles that I have been looking forward to, and a few Christmas projects as well.

I am sad to be missing some awesome events this weekend, but looking forward to the ones that I WILL be able to be a part of. We are beyond thankful for some friends who generously gifted us a trip to Wisconsin Dells a few days after I return back home. Aside from being an incredibly awesome gesture, this is also serving as something that Amelia has to look forward to during a tough time. She knows that I am gone and that we can talk on Skype, but this has still been sad for her. She gets very excited when we talk about going swimming after mom gets home!! A thousand hugs to Minnesota to the Brezinkas!

Up next: Tomorrow I will begin the thyroid replacement medication that I will take for the rest of my life: a simple-but-important little tablet taken (on an empty stomach) each morning. It contains synthetic thyroid hormone to replace the work that my thyroid would be doing if it was still around.

Equally important, tomorrow I will also be reunited with coffee creamer!! And other things, obviously, but that tiny splash of coffee creamer has been one of the most painful concessions. The low iodine diet that I have been on for the past 3 weeks will conclude tomorrow and I am free to eat whatever I like.  Those of you who know me well: I haven't had a piece of bread in three weeks. ME. No bread. Unheard of!!

Low Iodine Dinner at the Van Handel Wedding!

The limitations of the diet were not so bothersome until Wednesday. All of a sudden I started craving things (Egg McMuffins?!? Chipotle?! Lasagna!!) that I could not have, and my only option was to make a Wishlist for Saturday and beyond. I hope my bathing suit still fits in Wisconsin Dells!