Today's entry is going to stray from my usual babble about my running agenda. My blog is my journal, my diary, and today it's my therapy.
Today is my eighth day off of Synthroid and I'm plugging along just trying to go through the motions of my routine. As long as I keep busy, I feel mostly ok: some dizziness now and again, I'm tired, lethargic, and lacking motivation. I slept almost as much as I was awake over the weekend, but the family is taking good care of me by taking care of themselves. I do find that once I sit down, the fatigue closes in on me and it's hard to overcome the inertia to get moving again. I haven't run since Saturday's race (the Bloomingfoods 5k Breakaway), in spite of my good intentions. Going to try again today, wish me luck.
So why am I off of my Synthroid? In February of 2002, when the twins were only 7 weeks old, I had my thyroid and its goose-egg sized evil alien friend removed. A few months later, I had radioactive iodine to kill any cells that might have survived the surgery. The iodine was delivered to me in a heavy lead cup by a friendly young man stunningly dressed in a lead apron and wearing lead gloves. I was told to swallow my radioactive cocktail in one gulp, given a tissue to wipe my lips, and instructed to discard the tissue into a radioactive waste bin. That was it. I was told not to sneeze or cough on anyone and I was good to go. By "go" I mean "go straight home and isolate myself from every other living being in my household for a week". Easy peasy. All in all, a pretty simple and straight-forward treatment for cancer: no nasty chemotherapy, no radiation burns, no weakened immune function. Today, the only reminders I have of the cancer are the faded scar on my throat, the raspy voice and funky breathing I have courtesy of laryngeal paralysis, and my absolute dependence on taking thyroid supplements for the rest of my life.
Eleven months out of the year, those are the only reminders that is. In order to test for any recurrance of the cancer, about once a year they have me go completely off of my meds so they can check my blood for any thyroid protein. If any thyroid protein (thyroglobulin) is found, it suggests that I'm relapsing. This is a stressful process for two reasons: just being reminded that cancer could be lurking is worrisome but the added benefit of being severely hypothyroid during this testing impairs my coping abilities. For me, it tends to affect me with fatigue, apathy, irritability, weepiness, and a bad case of the blues. I try to run through the hypo phase, sometimes that's easier than others. This time around seems to be a bit tougher than usual for no reason that I can tell. At 10 years post-diagnosis/treatment, the chances of me having a recurrance are <5%. Pretty good odds, right? Every year when it's time for tests though, I'm not interested in what the odds predict. All that I want to know is what do my tests say?
Tomorrow is my first blood test after going off of the meds. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's been long enough for them to do the rest of the tests. If not, I stay off of the meds and we test again in a week. In the meantime, I'll keep moving in slow motion, sleeping every chance I get, and trying to keep my head above water.
Time to go run.
Today is my eighth day off of Synthroid and I'm plugging along just trying to go through the motions of my routine. As long as I keep busy, I feel mostly ok: some dizziness now and again, I'm tired, lethargic, and lacking motivation. I slept almost as much as I was awake over the weekend, but the family is taking good care of me by taking care of themselves. I do find that once I sit down, the fatigue closes in on me and it's hard to overcome the inertia to get moving again. I haven't run since Saturday's race (the Bloomingfoods 5k Breakaway), in spite of my good intentions. Going to try again today, wish me luck.
So why am I off of my Synthroid? In February of 2002, when the twins were only 7 weeks old, I had my thyroid and its goose-egg sized evil alien friend removed. A few months later, I had radioactive iodine to kill any cells that might have survived the surgery. The iodine was delivered to me in a heavy lead cup by a friendly young man stunningly dressed in a lead apron and wearing lead gloves. I was told to swallow my radioactive cocktail in one gulp, given a tissue to wipe my lips, and instructed to discard the tissue into a radioactive waste bin. That was it. I was told not to sneeze or cough on anyone and I was good to go. By "go" I mean "go straight home and isolate myself from every other living being in my household for a week". Easy peasy. All in all, a pretty simple and straight-forward treatment for cancer: no nasty chemotherapy, no radiation burns, no weakened immune function. Today, the only reminders I have of the cancer are the faded scar on my throat, the raspy voice and funky breathing I have courtesy of laryngeal paralysis, and my absolute dependence on taking thyroid supplements for the rest of my life.
Eleven months out of the year, those are the only reminders that is. In order to test for any recurrance of the cancer, about once a year they have me go completely off of my meds so they can check my blood for any thyroid protein. If any thyroid protein (thyroglobulin) is found, it suggests that I'm relapsing. This is a stressful process for two reasons: just being reminded that cancer could be lurking is worrisome but the added benefit of being severely hypothyroid during this testing impairs my coping abilities. For me, it tends to affect me with fatigue, apathy, irritability, weepiness, and a bad case of the blues. I try to run through the hypo phase, sometimes that's easier than others. This time around seems to be a bit tougher than usual for no reason that I can tell. At 10 years post-diagnosis/treatment, the chances of me having a recurrance are <5%. Pretty good odds, right? Every year when it's time for tests though, I'm not interested in what the odds predict. All that I want to know is what do my tests say?
Tomorrow is my first blood test after going off of the meds. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's been long enough for them to do the rest of the tests. If not, I stay off of the meds and we test again in a week. In the meantime, I'll keep moving in slow motion, sleeping every chance I get, and trying to keep my head above water.
Time to go run.
No comments:
Post a Comment