Radioactive Man

Aloha family and friends, here’s the latest news on Clarke’s thyroid situation. Thank you all for your well-wishes, good thoughts, and good food. We’ve both been a little tired since the surgery but overall, doing great. Thanks to everyone who offered up their homes for me to stay during his quarantine week (5 days starting on Monday). As for my thyroid, the endocrinologist took more blood and the test results came back negative (again) for hypo- or hyperthyroid. So basically, they’re still not sure what I have but they know it’s not a chemical imbalance or cancer. I have a follow-up appointment in a couple months. Thanks for checking up on both of us during this crazy time. Your love and support are an amazing help.

Attention greatest fan club a guy could ever ask for!

I wanted to throw an update to all of you as today we finally got a solid date on the next and biggest remaining step…The Glowing Pill and Post-swallow Quarantine (dun dun dunnnnnn). I will be going in on Monday, March 10th to Grossmont Hospital to the “Nuclear Medicine” department (how cool sounding is that?) and receiving a radioactive iodine pill to swallow then drive home. For those who’ve been keeping up with the saga, Thyroid Surgery went great, but there is usually cells left behind that were not taken out. Thyroid cells eat iodine and for the last 3 weeks, my body has been denied any iodine through a very special diet that has in effect starved whatever cells might be remaining. The radioactive iodine pill will look like big yummy fish food to a starving fish, and the cells will gobble it up, without realizing that this food has a hook…or in my case…”radio iodine 131″! Whatever cells that were left behind form my surgery will be nuked for the next several days, and I will have completely rid my body of any thyroid….at that time, I will get to start taking my hormones!

Synthroid will replicate what a thyroid would normally reproduce and for the first time since the surgery, I will start metabolising at a more regulated normal level. The last three weeks, there has been the gamut of annoying but very manageable symptoms such as sluggishness, numbness, fatigue, bloatedness (fellas, I finally know what this means…I can’t joke that its all fiction anymore :P) and just a general fogginess with memory and decision making (Stefanie will argue that my memory has always been like this, I am sure since I’m always forgetting things she tell me).

All in all, some annoying stuff, but nothing worth stressin about or getting down about. In fact, as my body has been depleting, I was told I’d feel worse, but I am feeling better each day! Maybe its seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but really think its everyone’s (thats you!) positive thoughts, prayers, energy and overall support. I wake up each morning ready to deal with whatever and grateful for the chance. I am convinced a positive attitude and great support can make bad situations better…every day of the week! The way I have been cared for…the situation is far from a bad situation.

I will let you guys know soon about how things are going/have gone with the quarantine. Thank you to…
Kay (Best pot-roast award),
Stefanie (Best margarine, homemade chocolate and baked bread awards),
Mom (Best Iodine free prepared steak award),
Heather (Best chicken-based award),
Leslie (Best iodine free Spaghetti award ),
Aunt Nancy (Best homegrown Beets award),
and my surf brother Eric (Best Pork dish award)
…for helping with wonderful iodine meals for me. While the diet has been a challenge, its prolly as yummy and healthy and bearable as anyone on it could ever have!

Stay tuned for the next installment of….The Thyroid Cancer Chronicals. Love and aloha to you all, Clarke

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