finally feeling more human

Well, here I am finally. My treatment did not go as I had anticipated. I went in at 10:15 am on Friday morning (the 10th). I had to stop by the lab first to have a pregnancy test, standard procedure. Then I got to sit around the waiting room in radiology for about an hour. Finally they came out and took me back to Nuclear Med. My Endo was there along with the nuclear med. tech and a nurse. They had me sign a sheet saying I wasn't pregnant but that I released them from all liability if I was. Then they went over my list of "rules" and had me sign a copy of that as well as signing an authorization for treatment form. They verified my dosage which was just over 200 millicurries. Actually it's a pretty high dose, had it been 220 I would've been hospitalized for 24-72 hours but I opted to go ahead and go home. They asked if I had any questions and after that my Endo left and the nurse came hefting a small but clearly heavy lead container. She sat it in front of me and opened it then she told me to remove the plastic container inside and shoot the pill like a shot and put the lid back on and stick it back in the lead container. While I did this she stood back across the room from me. At least she wasn't decked out in the space suit to hand it to me like I hear that they used to do. After that I was free to go. I wasn't allowed to eat for 4 hours prior to the dose and had to wait for 2 hours afterwards but I was told to immediately begin sucking on lemon drops to encourage my salivary glands to keep working. I was also told that should I vomit within the next two hours to call them so they could send Haz. Mat. out for clean up. Good stuff.
I felt pretty okay for the next few hours but still needed to stay on my LID for the next 24 hours so I went home and grabbed my special food and went on to my dad's house to settle in. I grabbed a snack and went to sleep. I woke up around 6:30 pm and cooked myself some dinner which was awkward because I tried not to touch food that didn't belong to me and I had to eat on a disposable plate with disposable silverware. My dad was disappointed that he still had to cook his own food. Then I decided that my allergies couldn't abide by all the dust and mouse shit in my bedroom so I started cleaning and then I started packing all his crap up so he can know that it is time to get out of my house.
Then Saturday came and I just kept sleeping and sleeping. I was only awake for a few hours. Sunday I woke up around 1:30pm and only because my dad wanted me to help him go buy a new used truck since he just wrecked his the week before. We went by my mom's house so he could borrow the money from her and I to go back to sleep while she took him to go get the truck. That's when the real fun started. I just kept sleeping and when I was awake I was nauseous. My mom decided that I should take a laxative. Okay, here I'm going to stop and apologize in advance to anyone who is against TMI and do my best to be vague but informative. I have a history of being prone to constipation. I was actually supposed to have a colonoscopy back in May to remove some polyps but then this cancer thing came along. So here I am, extrememly hypothyroid which also makes you constipated. I was leery about the laxative because I tend to have painful cramping that sometimes results in vomiting and near-fainting when I try to "force" the issue. I don't know if what happened next was 100% the laxative but I suspect it mostly was. I began having horrible cramping and then started sweating and feeling faint and vomiting and could hardly set up. I got so weak and in such pain that I decided to go to the ER. They gave me an IV with anti-nausea medicine and saline for hydration. They also discovered that I had a urinary tract infection so after awhile they finally sent me home, which was now my mom's house because I needed more people around to help me and I didn't want my dad to have to take off of work. Plus when you feel like crap you really just want your mommy, don't you? I then pretty much slept for the next 3 days while my mom nagged me that I needed to get up and drink more water to get the radiation out as fast as possible. By Wednesday I finally felt well enough to stay awake for at least several hours and I missed my boys terribly so I went to the hospital and had them wave the magic wand over me (geiger counter) to make sure I wasn't too radioactive for my boys. They said as long as I didn't have them sitting on me for more than about 20 minutes at a time and I slept alone that they should be okay. So I finally came home and for the rest of the week my family still came over to help with the boys and let me sleep uninterrupted. Now here I am almost a week later and I'm finally getting over my hypothyroidism, slowly but surely. It takes about 6-8 weeks to get my levels back up but I feel much better. The most troublesome side effect that I have at this point is the fact that I can't taste anything. Apparently, this isn't real common but has been noted on a few message boards to have happened and it seems to last a couple of weeks. It's like I cooked a hamburger and let the grease cool and coagulate and then licked it. I have this constant feeling of a thick coating of grease on my tongue that I can't taste through. If I happen to eat anything greasy it's god-awful. If it keeps up I could actually lose some weight which I'd love. I haven't eaten any chocolate because what's the point, I can't taste it. I've been very fortunate to have several people bring food for my family and I so I haven't had to really cook dinner since I've been home. It's nice to not have to worry if someone is a bad cook too because nothing really tastes like anything to me. I know this post is a little long and for that I apologize but it has been awhile and is likely to be awhile before I get around to posting again. So I'll leave you with this little nugget. I've gained 10 pounds since going hypothyroid for my treatment. Last night before bed while waiting on his bedtime stories, Owen was laying in MY bed on MY pillow when he pipes up in a really whiny voice, "Mom, you keep getting fatter and pushing me off of the pillow." Yes I did indeed birthe such a creature.

Time to Glow

I am so relieved. My levels are finally where they need to be and I will have my radiation on Friday around noon. I am not having a dose quite high enough to be hospitalized but I'll be staying with my dad for about a week, maybe more maybe less depending on how radioactive I am. I don't want to take any chances with the kids. It's going to be really hard to be away from them for more than a couple of days but I couldn't live with myself if I thought it was going to do any long term harm to them. Kids and pets are more susceptible to ill effects of radiation. They say that for two weeks following a dose that you should pretend you have strep throat and refrain from kissing or sharing drinks, foods, etc. with others. If I wash or handle other peoples eating utensils or food I should wear gloves. Radiation is primarily excreted through saliva, urine, and sweat. If I do come home sooner than two weeks I will have to sleep in the extra bedroom alone until the two weeks is up. I will be relieved to get this all over with! Especially this restrictive diet. I've been hypothyroid for the past three weeks so that's a lot of the reason I haven't posted on here, sorry to leave anyone hanging on what was going on but I've just been too exhausted. I've had lots of ideas for posts just no energy. Hopefully I'll be able to post a little more next week but my dad doesn't have internet at his house so I'll take the laptop and if I get lucky I'll maybe catch a signal off a neighbor or something. I also might go down to the library or something to post. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!