Wednesday, September 24, 2014

What Super Power Do I Want


This the second time I've done this.

A bare, efficient room at Athens Regional Hospital. Someone walks in with a glass of water and a heavy lead container, and then they scurry safely away. I open the container, take out a pill. And swallow it.

Swallow the thing they're running away from. Great.

It's thyroid cancer. They removed the thyroid and cancer cells last year. Also a year ago (and again today) I'm undergoing what's called Radioactive Iodine Ablation. Before the ablation, you go off any iodine in your diet because thyroid cells suck up iodine. And then they give you an iodine pill laced with radioactivity. Any remaining thyroid cells, or potential cancer cells, soak up the iodine and the radioactivity, which kills the remaining cells but doesn't really harm much of anything else.

The super power thing? I'm hoping to get bitten by a spider. More likely it'll be a particularly ugly slug.

Anyway, I have to stay away from people for a few days. What itty bit doesn't get soaked up by thyroid cells has to go somewhere -- and basically that means drinking lots of fluids and getting rid of the excess exactly like you think you have to get rid of the excess. Oh, and flush 2-3 times after each, um, excess. Really it takes a coupla days to get rid of most of it, but you have to sleep alone for 4 days (my dosage) and not share plates or spoons or let people near you.

But ... tomorrow I can go off this stupid iodine-free diet. Again, I can have bread, or dairy, or eggs, or a burger for God's sake.

And if I'm very lucky, this will kill off the remaining cells that seem to be somewhere in my neck, but we can't find them by scanning.

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