I woke up Friday morning with the typical headache and fatigue and swelling and BLAH BLAH BLAH that I'd had for the past two weeks. Being off meds really isn't fun. It makes me look like this, and I feel just as miserable as I look:
Hypothyroidism is for the birds, let me tell you. And this is WITH makeup on. Yamma Hamma.
ANYWAYS.....
I was checked out of the hotel by 6:30 am, and was in having a whole body scan by 7:15 am. By my 10:45 am doctor's appointment, Dr. Stan had all the results ready and waiting (well, I guess HE was 45 minutes late, but the results were there. I was sure of it!) He had already physically talked to the nuclear med doctor in person about the scan - not just read a report. He called him up and got his impressions mano y mano. The collaboration and communication in this place blows me away. I am thoroughly impressed by it.
Six weeks ago, Dr. Stan gave radioiodine a 34% chance of working. He told me not to get my hopes up, but since surgery and ethanol ablation weren't options, he was willing to try a less viable option if I was. I was. Obviously. Well, yesterday, after seeing my scan and talking to the nuclear med guy, that story all changed. He said "We couldn't have asked for a better scenario. Usually things that show up on PET scan don't also show up on radioiodine scan, but these did. The same spots lit up, which mean they are iodine-avid. And only the two spots we already knew about lit up. Which means that we're pretty sure we found all the cancer, and it's treatable with radioiodine. This should work." He was actually SMILING as he said it. SMILING!! I was like.... WHAT?!?!?!?!?! He also was very explicit about telling me "These are not life-threatening lesions. They are vocal-cord threatening lesions". I already knew that, but it was GOOD TO HEAR in such plain language. "We're a go for 2 pm today for 75 mci of radioiodine!"
Bottom line.... Dr. Stan was telling me that he thought I was going to be CURED OF CANCER with this treatment. CURED people. Not watching. Not monitoring. Not controlling or slowing down. CURED. After 2.5 years. After my Marshfield doctor had very explicitly told me that being cured wasn't even a goal of his, he was there to "manage" it. That it would never go away, because radioiodine didn't work the first time, and the remaining lesions weren't candidates for more conventional therapies. And here Dr. Stan was, the chair of Thyroid core group of the American Thyroid Association, at one of the top medical facilities in the world, telling me that he was pretty sure he would CURE me, by not following the protocol. By looking at my individual situation and doing what his gut told him best, despite protocol. I wanted to scream. Maybe I did? I'm sure I waited until I was in my car to do that, and not in front of the man himself, but I was ELATED. OVER THE MOON. Light me up, buddy. I'm ready.
He wants to follow up in 4 months time. I told him that I already had an appointment scheduled with my Marshfield doctor in November - would that suffice? He paused, looked at me, and said carefully, "well, you know... the ultrasounds you had there were read as clear, and they obviously weren't. They missed the cancer for two years. I want to know that this is gone, and I trust our staff here. Let me make sure the cancer is gone, then you can follow up there all you want." DEAL. DEAL. DEAL. Plus, he wants to make sure that my tumor marker goes down from that horrendous 106 number to Zero. FINALLY. So I will be back in October. Fine. By. Me.
It really didn't hit me until I was radioactive and on the way home. What I haven't had in the past two years, through this entire saga.... what I was lacking...was HOPE. Hope of a life after, where there was a real possibility of an end. A way to put it all behind me, and not have it looming. I was getting really good at pretending it all wasn't there until I had to. But it was there. Always in the back of my mind, always wondering about it, always lurking. I had never allowed myself to hope that it could all go away completely. I was too busy processing the thought of having to live with it for the rest of my life until either it or something else did me in. But be rid of it altogether? I wanted that, but had not allowed myself to believe it was an actual possibility. So when Dr. Stan smiled and said "this should work"... MAN. Hope!!! Such a grand feeling. I floated all the way home, and did not even get tired once, without the aid of tea or coffee, or Five Hour Energy, or Coke-a-cola, or naps, or stops to get out and walk around. Nothing. I floated home on hope and prayers people. Hope and prayers.
When I walked into my bedroom after the drive, I was greeted by a surprise transformation. There were flowers everywhere. Slippers and a robe waiting for me on my bed. Books and tea, and food in the fridge, and lovely notes, and essential oils with diffusers, and lotions, and soaps, and all kinds of wonderful, thoughtful, kind things! My friends had broken into my room while I was gone and transformed it into my own private spa, and it was amazing. IS amazing. I won't want to leave, even after I'm allowed to be around people again, I assure you!!! Take a gander at THIS:
I have the best friends in the world. And I just can't help feeling blessed and happy. This horrible day that I was dreading turned out to be an enormous blessing, and one I will remember with joy and gratitude FOREVER. THANK YOU GOOD AND GRACIOUS LORD! And THANK YOU, dear and wonderful friends, that I don't even begin to deserve.
I am blessed beyond measure.
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