New suit

Abby in her new bathing suit.

Yummy, yummy iodine

To celebrate the end of the 3 week long low iodine diet and my good scan, Josh took me out for dinner. The thing I was missing most during the LID was cheese so what better way to indulge than with a pizza. It was really nice to be able to eat pizza & beer nuggets....two things that there's no way I could even eaten on the LID.

Take that cancer!

After I had my scan this morning, the radiologist gave me the all clear that the pictures were good and wouldn't need to re-scan me. I was thrilled....if you've had to have a whole body scan, you understand why. It sucks to lie perfectly still, hands over your head with a big square machine like less than an inch from your face. Since I knew the scan was all clear, I felt pretty confident that the low iodine diet was over...after all I was expecting good results and not to hear that I needed treatment. So I celebrated with an iced mocha coffee from Burger King. I headed back over to the hospital to get my blood drawn and as I was sitting in the parking lot finishing my coffee, my doctor's office called with my scan results. Nothing showed up! I still can't believe I had results in under 30 minutes. Kudos to the radiology department at Delnor Hospital!!!!

I do still have to clear the hurdle of a good thyroglobulin test result but I am not worried. I had that tested not long ago and it was <.2 which is about as good as result as I can get.

Day 5

I'm in my comfy clothes and all ready to leave for the hospital for my scan. I'm even going to wear some awesome old gym socks with my flip flops. I went to bed at 8:30 last night and slept all the way until 6:30 and it was still hard to get up for my alarm.

I know I'll be okay, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a little scared. I don't want anything to show up in that scan. I don't want anything to show up in my blood test afterwards either. I broke up with cancer in 2006 and I am not interested in getting back together!

In fact, this is how I feel about cancer:

Day 4

Had a break from going to the hospital for any reason, but really started to feel hypothyroid. Headaches, feeling cold, extreme tiredness and best of all the nausea continued. I'm hoping that the nausea was just still from the radiation and it goes away.

Taking time to smell the flowers

I finally got around to putting together our photos from the botanical garden in Peoria into a slideshow. Our trip to the garden was something I wanted to do to celebrate my 3rd year of remission. Each year to celebrate my remission I like to do something as a family with a focus on life. What celebrates life better than a beautiful garden? We had a lovely morning walking through the dewy grass and looking at the pretty flowers and plants. We even saw a fluffy little baby bird on our walk.

Days 2 & 3

So I'm about 1/2 way through scan week now. I feel like I can see the end in sight!

Day 2: Yesterday I had my 2nd dose of Thyrogen. Why does the 2nd shot always hurt more than the first one anyway? Ouch! I started feeling tired and some mind fog yesterday so hypothyroidism is making its appearance. But we spent the afternoon at the pool so I didn't have to think or do much.

Day 2: Apparently enjoying a morning delicacy of a low iodine blueberry muffin was not allowed prior to get radiation. I so wish my endo or the hospital had told me that would be an issue. So after having a quite frustrating trip out to the hospital, I have to do it again in just over an hour. Hopefully this time I won't have to deal with the construction or have a slow-moving, brake happy RV in front of me.

PS: Dear Thyroid, I hate you a whole big bunch today. Because of you I've gotten 2 shots this week, had to give up iodine for the past 2 1/2 weeks and now today I get some more radiation. Like I need more radiation!

PSS: If I have to glow in the dark, can my "glow" be pink?