thyroid cancer

Marilyn by Jessica Harrison

I know what this feels like!  While I like macabre stuff in general, I especially liked this one because of my own neck surgeries.  And, this is an altered Royal Doulton.  I know this because my grandparents collected these. A lot of them.  Grandmom focused on exactly these "pretty ladies" which I found kind of twee and cloying.  I was never much into anything lady-fied.  Granddad collected the male "character figures"  which I always thought were way cooler.

Hmm. Swords and book learning over poufy dresses.....characters versus "pretty ladies"....Yes, I really like where Jessica Harrison is going with these.

(there is an ad when this starts, sorry)   Full transcript

I liked this clip because Clinton is pragmatic and genuine about the process.  This was essentially the path I took as well. You want to get healthy and you quickly discover that there is a lot of evidence that the plant-based diet is the way to go.  I try to not be a bore about all this and figure people find their own way to what works for them. If you are interested I would recommend the following books:

The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell, II
Compelling evidence from the most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease. Kind of blows your mind.

Anti-Cancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD
That the book is part memoir makes it more powerful for me.  That he had a cancer recurrence and it was not until then that he made major dietary changes and focused on improving his "terrain"--that resonated with me. That second go round really gets a person motivated! His 20 Anti-cancer rules 

News from quarantine:  Four days in one room of your house and you opted not to get the digital converter box for the tv.

After taking your tiny pill from its giant lead container, you rush home into quarantine with a stockpile of hard candy.  You need the candy because you want to keep your saliva moving because the radiation can make your salivary glands burn and hurt. Mine feel fine.  You can feel where the radioiodine is being absorbed as the area gets a bit swollen.  It seems that mine is all concentrated around the scar tissue and where they took the lymph nodes and not at all around the empty thyroid bed.  Good.  Zap those cells!

You follow the protocol so as not to irradiate your spouse.  You are never in the same room, eat off disposable plates, wash your towels daily and separately, etc. Dagwood is keeping the dog near him as well.  I am not sure why but I have been having vertigo so I am really just resting in the bed.  I could move around within my one room, but what would I do? Quarantine ends up being very quiet.  It is hard to imagine how you could make it a high energy event.  You have a lot of time to think, mull, ponder, reflect, and generally work out some mental knots.

I found this piece by Dana Jennings at The New York Times.  He describes some of the things I have been thinking about taking things slow. We rush to return to normal and focus on the physical recuperation and seem determined to gloss over the real fundamental issues being raised.  The big scary questions about life.  The universe is tapping you on the shoulder trying to to get this dance and I would suggest going for it.  And I know because I tried the rush right back to normal approach last go round. Anything life changing demands your full engagement.  And, such things are not to be rushed.  As he says,

After surgery and treatment, my 21st-century synapses and neurons wanted to believe that the cancer had been no more than a bump in the road toward a bright future — just a particularly nasty frost heave.

But the deepest analog part of me understood that having cancer was a life-changing event. As much as I thought I wanted to forge ahead, surge into the whirlwind of dailiness, I needed to slow way down.

My recuperation is going very well.  My recovery is a work in progress.

I started telling you about my saga and figured a one-month update was in order.

Two weeks ago I was afraid things weren't ever going to improve.  My neck was just so grossly swollen. I suspect most recovering patients experience this kind of doubt.   At Day 31, it is as if the heavy lifting is done and now someone just has to tidy up the place. What a relief!

I can drive! I can swivel my head.  Each day brings less stiffness and more ease of movement. My right shoulder is still a bit weird. There is still some odd nerve sensation, like a weakness, when I raise my arm straight out to my side but it is receding.  I still have a little swelling on the right side under my jaw. The feeling there and at my ear lobe is beginning to return. There is some numbness as wearing a scarf still feels really odd.  My scars are looking bumpy but less red. 

Now the focus is shifting from surgery to treatment.  Here is where personal stamina and grit come into play.  Sure, you made it over the surgery hurdle but it is not yet time to party!  Just when I thought I felt human, we get to embark on a stretch of of hypothyroidism  and an odd restricted diet.  We are going to schedule  radioactive iodine therapy or ablation which uses radioactive iodine, Sodium Iodide (I¹³¹), to kill any remaining cancer cells. The clincher is that for this to be effective, high levels of TSH need to be produced in your body. So you stop taking your thyroid medicine and your pituitary goes into overdrive cranking out the TSH.  This makes you feel like crap, but you are OK with that as you are anxious to kill any pesky, lurking cancer cells. And the thinking is that the low iodine diet may help get the radioactive iodine into the cancer cells.

I have reached textbook hypothyroidism.  My face is puffy. Thinking feels like pulling taffy out of a freezer.  Short term memory is ...what was I saying? All systems just kind of slow down or go a bit off-line.  I am slow to wake up and never really get going, sort of like wading through molasses all day.  My thermostat is broken.  I am always freezing and can't get warm. That kind of thing.  Of course, this is just until I take my radioactive pills and then I can start up the thyroid meds again.  The diet is fine-- very healthy as it largely whole grains and fruits and vegetables.  Having gone practically vegan, we really miss tofu and soy products.  You can't have anything made with salt, like ketchup, or any processed foods, or eat out anywhere.  So, you are cooking all the time, from scratch. Watching Dagwood baking bread and making almond milk is exhausting!

In the large scheme of things, this is a minor inconvenience on the road to remission.  But, truth is, it is hard to be gracious when just as you start to feel better, you have to feel bad again.  I don't want to complain because I am committed to killing any cancer cells.  But the timing sucks, you know?

Next update-- How to kill time in radioactive quarantine.