I'm Radioactive!

This has been a very important week in my treatment.  This part of the process is called Radioactive Iodine (or RAI) Ablation.  This treatment is specific to thyroid cancer patients because of the thyroid's unique ability to absorb iodine.  Basically, the idea is for the radioactive iodine to seek out and destroy any remaining thyroid cells left in my body, which should ablate those nasty cancer cells too.  I got my dosage of RAI yesterday, so I have spent the past 24 hours or so picturing this happening inside my body:



Extreme?  Perhaps.  But I've had a lot of time on my hands to think about this stuff in the past few days.  Here's a timeline of my week:

Monday:

I was admitted to the hospital for my first Thyrogen injection.  Yep.  They admitted me (bracelet and all) to give me a shot in my hip.  The purpose of this injection is to enhance the uptake of the RAI without having to take me off my daily thyroid medication.  I am SO thankful I was able to take this route because I definitely want to avoid being taken off my Levothyroxine.  I was at the hospital for approximately an hour on this day, which seems like a long time just to get a shot.  But they had to go through the whole list of questions they ask when you're admitted to the hospital, plus I had to wait there for at least 20 minutes after my shot to make sure I wouldn't have any reactions to the Thyrogen.  Overall, it was no big deal at all.  

Tuesday:
Back to the hospital for Thyrogen injection numero dos.  This time, I walked right in and right back out.  I was feeling the effects of the injection though.  They made me extremely tired, and I also experienced headaches and some nausea.  In the grand scheme of things, I'd much rather have that feeling for a day or two than several weeks of fatigue.  

Wednesday:
D-Day.  Time to head back to the hospital and get all sorts of radioactive.  The morning started with a trip to the lab to test my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) levels to see if the Thyrogen injections did their job. The goal was to elevate my TSH levels as much as possible to help stimulate any remaining thyroid tissue to take up the radioactive iodine.  The normal TSH range is 0.358 - 3.740 uIU/ml (whatever that stands for), and mine was 155.  So, I'd say I was pretty elevated!!  Pair that with my low-iodine diet, and those little cells should be HUNGRY for that iodine.  I feel ya, little cells.  I am, too.  No, seriously...I'm having dreams about cheeseburgers and milkshakes.

After the lab fun, it was up to the 2nd floor to Nuclear Medicine.  Sounds scary, huh?  I always feel like there should be some deep, spooky voice bellowing that out from the dark of night. Maybe with a sinister "muah-ha-ha-ha-ha" afterwards.  So, off I went to the magical...er...depressing waiting room in Nuclear Medicine, or Nuke Med as my new pals at the hospital call it.  I figure I can use that lingo now, too since I'm pretty much a regular there these days.  This was the darkest, quietest, loneliest place on Earth where I spent about an hour, although it felt like I might die of loneliness and starvation there.  Did I mention that I had to fast for this?  So, there's that.  Here's my view as I sat there (sing it with me, now) -  Allllllll byyyyyyyyyyy myyyyyseeeeeeeeeeeellllllf.

All of that alone time did give me a chance to peruse the paperwork the Nuke Med doctor had asked me to sign during our very brief and very awkward consultation just a few minutes before. Here is the list of my Dos and Don'ts I will be following for about the next week or so. I'm learning that it seems to be a different list of instructions for each patient and each doctor, but I will be playing it safe and following my rules, and maybe even taking extra precautions for a while.

I was scheduled to get my RAI dose at 10:00, but I wasn't able to take it until the lab results came back.  I guess the main thing they needed to confirm was that I wasn't pregnant.  Makes sense - We don't need no radioactive babies roaming around.  At around 11:00, the nurse called me back and said, "Congratulations! You're not pregnant and you get to ingest this radioactive substance into your body!!"  Or something like that.  

She took me to a room that had one of these signs on the door, which was a little unnerving: 

The room was more like a closet, really.  And the rest, my friends, is pretty anticlimactic.  She opened up a container that looked like this...

...and took out a little plastic tube containing the 100 mCi pill I would need to swallow.  She handed me a bottle of water as well as the plastic tube and down the hatch it went!  Then she told me to head on out and follow the instructions the doctor gave me.  And that was it.

I felt weird walking near other non-radioactive people in the hospital. I felt kind of like I was in a game of Frogger.  People would walk toward me and I would step to the side to avoid any direct contact.  I felt like I should be wearing a radioactive sign around my neck to warn people to stay away! It also took a while to find an elevator that wasn't absolutely packed with people.

After I safely exited the hospital, I got in my car and drove myself to my home-away-from-home for the next several days.  My mom and dad's house!  Waiting for me when I arrived were some yummy low-iodine snacks, a beautiful vase of flowers, a coloring book for when I need something different to do, and a warm Snuggie to snuggle up in.  

I can't say that I feel any different after getting my RAI.  I felt a lot of warmth coming from my stomach area for a little bit yesterday, but nothing dramatic is happening.  I just hope that the RAI is doing its job and that this part can be behind me.  Here's a glimpse at what I've been up to so far in the past 24 hours:

Warm snuggie time

Beautiful flowers

Halfway through this book

A Chef Mary low-iodine specialty

Sometimes it's just fun to color!