Rogue Emails

Many of you who are subscribed to get blog updates via email have gotten some strange posts the past couple of days. Feedburner randomly decided to start sending out my posts from 2010. They look fishy, but they're nothing to worry about. Apparently this has happened to other people too. I've deactivated and then reactivated the feed, so maybe that will stop. 

While I'm here maybe I'll update you with more current news...  The kids spent most of last week in Richmond for their spring break with both sets of grandparents. I went to Montreal for a Python developers conference (and had a great time) and Nate was in Chicago for the weekend for an economics conference. Then Nate & I had a few days without the kids in Arlington which was nice too. Kids had a great time--yay for having family nearby!

Not a whole lot going on with my thyroid. I had some blood work done and met with my endocrinologist a couple of weeks ago. My Tg levels were higher than we were hoping for, but I'm not supposed to be alarmed. Ideally they'd be undetectable because that would mean I don't have any thyroid cells in my body. The fact that they've gone up a tiny bit since the fall means I need to keep a closer eye on the blood work (do the test again in June instead of waiting until September), and I'll probably get a neck ultrasound and a nucelar scan in the fall (which means another two weeks of low iodine diet, alas). Until then my plan is to not think about it at all.

Hope you're all doing well....happy spring!

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

Scan today went great. No evidence of cancer spreading beyond what we already knew about. Yay! Also, I got them to measure me with a geiger counter and from 3 feet away I'm almost indistinguishable from background radiation (I'm .03 mrem/hr, background is .02 mrem/hr). Up close to my neck dose rate is higher (.45 mrem/hr), but still low enough that I don't need to worry about snuggling with the kids...it means kid sitting on my lap with head right next to my neck for 3 hours would get about the same radiation exposure as they would in one cross-country flight. And given the short half-life, even that will go away pretty soon.

I have follow-up appointment with endocrinologist in October, but probably there won't really be any more cancer news until I get follow-up scan in a year.

Kids are having a great start to the new school year, and Nate teaches his first class as a Georgetown professor tomorrow. Woohoo!

Ending Isolation

So I'm basically done with my post-RAI isolation, and it really hasn't been too bad. I've been sleeping in, spending long mornings out on the porch reading, afternoons on the computer, evenings watching tennis & Gilmore Girls (thanks Meredith!) and doing jigsaw puzzles. I've felt really supported by neighbors, family, and friends here, and I'm kind of an introvert anyway, so I haven't been too lonely.

Saturday I took an outing to Hollywood Cemetery, where I miraculously found my grandmother & great-grandmother's graves. I hadn't been there in at least 15 years, and the map I had of where the plot was was just an aerial view, with no street names. After visiting the graves of James Monroe, John Tyler, Jefferson Davis, and countless confederate soldiers, I eventually found it. The hill where the presidents were buried had a nice view of the river...fun to see all the people out playing on the rocks on the other side.

Tomorrow morning I'll call the kids to wish them a good first day of school, clean up the house, pack my stuff, and go pick up my mom for the drive back to DC. My mom's coming up to help for another few days this week. We may pass Nate's parents on I-95 as they make their way back down here after being at out place for over a week.

Wednesday I have my post-RAI series of scans...will take a couple of hours to get through them all, but these will reveal more definitely if the cancer spread anywhere outside my neck. Hopefully they'll be clean, and the doc will tell me I've cleared enough of the radiation that it's safe to go back to work and snuggle with the kids.

Will update again Wednesday after the scans....

RAI treatment

Despite March on Washington road closures the drive to WHC Wednesday was easy, no traffic. When I got to my room I found everything covered: the floor, the chair & table, the phone & tv remote, the door handles & light switches. This makes it easier for them to clean up any contamination in the room when I leave. I was instructed not to bring in anything not disposable (like phone, ipad, books), since if they became contaminated they'd either need to be thrown away or sequestered for 2 months.

I finally got my radioactive iodine dose at 2:30. I spent the afternoon watching March on Washington on TV, then after dinner I discovered the show 'Castle' with that guy from Firefly. It was good and fortunately TNT likes it too, becaused they showed like 4 or 5 episodes in a row, so that was what I watched all evening. Crossword puzzle and Games magazine also kept me occupied. At some point (10pm?) I started to feel pretty nauseated, and they gave me some more anti-nausea medicine (I got some before the RAI too), but it didn't really help much. I continued to try to drink a lot and suck on the sour candies, but it got much harder when everything I put in my mouth made me feel worse. I slept for about an hour between 1:30 and 3, then puked a bunch. Slept maybe another hour before 5am. At around 9am the radiation safety guy came to measure my levels, telling me that since I had a hefty dose it was likely I'd have to wait a while longer before they let me go....but turned out I was well under the limit. Took them a long time to get my discharge papers together, so I didn't get out of there until around 11am. I think I took 5 showers while I was there (every 3-4 hours). A word to the wise: if you ever have to stay at WHC (especially on low-iodine diet), bring your own food and get the nurse to heat it up for you. The stuff they brought me was inedible, but my mom's brunswick stew was great.

So from WHC I drove straight down to Don & Ada's house in Richmond (they're at my house helping with kids this week & weekend). After I got here I unpacked and took yet another shower, then slept for four hours. Woke up, ordered a pizza for dinner (no more low-iodine diet!!) and then settled in for an evening of watching tennis and starting a jigsaw puzzle. Yay for the US Open. Isner/Monfils match was great, glad I stayed up for it.

So now it's Friday morning. I slept well last night, didn't wake up until 8am. I was still feeling kind of sick yesterday, but mostly better today. I've spent the morning on the screen porch reading newspaper, drinking coffee (with milk!), eating granola & yogurt. It's a beautiful day!

The big day

The dosimetry stuff I did the week before last (trace dose of radiation, then scans every day for 5 days) revealed that I clear radiation out of my body faster than average, so I'm getting a bigger than standard dosage for my radioactive iodine treatment: 275 millicuries. I'll brave the March on Washington traffic and arrive at the hospital at 11am, where I'll probably wait around a long time while they get my room ready and stuff. I'll drink the RAI, then stay overnight in the lead-lined hospital room. I'm supposed to eat lemon drops almost nonstop (to clear my salivary glands), drink (and pee) as much as humanly possible and shower often to try to clear the unabsorbed RAI from my body.

Whenever I get discharged (Thursday morning?) I'll head straight to Nate's parents' house in Richmond to spend the rest of my week of isolation there. Will head back to DC next Tuesday (first day of school!). I have another scan next Wednesday, and that'll be the most conclusive evidence about whether the cancer spread outside my neck.

Time to finish packing!

I'm radioactive!

(written around noon today)

I'm in the middle of my week of basically living at Washington Hospital Center (7 trips in 8 days), the dosimetry week. Monday and Tuesday I came in for Thyrogen injections to boost my TSH levels so my thyroid cells will absorb more iodine, and today I got to talk to a nuclear physicist before swallowing 2 mCi of radioactive iodine. That was at 11am. Now I'm just hanging out in the courtyard (where the weather is perfect) until 1pm, when they'll do a scan and collect some blood. Had to fast before the appointment this morning, so I'll get my first meal of the day when I get home, around 2:30. I come back Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Monday for more scans & blood draws, then get the rest of next week off. I have to follow some radiation safety precautions for a couple of days, but this is a really low dose, so it's a lot less than what I'll have to do in a couple weeks for the big dose.

I've been on the low-iodine diet for 2.5 weeks, still have 2 to go. It hasn't been too hard, especially since my mom has cooked so much for me (she's still in Richmond, but she filled the freezer with stuff in June, and it's been great).

Other stuff that's been going on that I don't think we've mentioned:

The last week in July we took a trip to California to stomp on the old stomping grounds and see our Brass Monkey friends out there (plus a couple non-monkeys). It was great. Kids did fine with the travel, we got to visit Berkeley Bowl & Crixa Cakes, Rowan got to see the house where we lived when she was a baby, we spent an afternoon at Half Moon Bay (for the first time ever!), we walked around Lake Anza at Tilden, and we spent a whole weekend in Inverness with our Monkey buddies.

This past weekend I had a lovely time in Richmond with Sapna, Meredith, & Joy (who came all the way from Seattle for the occasion). Sapna's 34 weeks pregnant and on bedrest, so we did not go out on the town quite as much as originally planned, but we sat and talked and organized baby stuff. We need to all move to the same city so we can hang out more often.

The kids are at the river with my parents this week, having a good time playing at the little beach, picking blueberries, and hanging around the house. It's nice to have a little break from childcare, but it will be really good to see them this weekend! I'm bringing my mom back too, so she'll spend next week with us, then Nate's parents are coming the following week (overlapping with when I'm in isolation at their house), then my mom's back again for a bit. So we'll have a busy house the next few weeks!

Ok, time for me to head back inside for my scan. Will try to post this tonight....

appointment with Dr. Boyle

Yesterday Jenny and I went to see the surgeon, Dr. Boyle, about the pathology report.  She reassured us that nothing in the report changes much the prognosis.  So now we're in the process of starving Jenny of iodine and preparing for the RAI treatment later this month.