Radiation!

The next adventure in this stupid cancer bullshit ride I'm on is now...radiation.  Actually, radioactive iodine therapy.  All I have to do it go to the hospital, swallow a pill and go straight home.  No stopping at Target, the casino or the bar.  Because I will be radioactive and if I come up and give you a hug, your dick will fall off.  (if you're of the dick-having kind)  I have to go straight home and be in a room by myself for 3 days.  That means, no sleeping in the same bed with the Boyfriend, no sharing bathroom w/anyone, no sharing forks/cups/toothbrushes/horse saddles with anyone for 72 hours.  I can be in the same house/vicinity of people but no closer than 6 feet.  This also includes our animals.  Which is hilarious because Rosie is attached to my side whenever I am home; trying to get her to stay 6 feet away from me for three days is going to be HELL ON EARTH.  She's always climbing on top of me like a GD billy goat and sticking her nose in my mouth to smell what I just ate.  She sleeps under my armpit.  She's an asshole.

Just Kidding. I lub her.

After three days I can be around normal healthy people.  But since I work in a clinic and come into contact with all sorts of people (kids, pregnant women, elderly, sick) I have to stay home for another 4 days.  So that means another week off work.  Rough, right?!  I'll be able to work from home during that time, thank the Lord.  Otherwise I would get absolutely stir crazy and rearrange the entire house five times.  The radioactive iodine won't make me feel any different, I won't get sick from it...I just can't be around other people who might be immunocompromised.  And don't anyone try to knock me up either, I had to pinky-promise the doctor that I wouldn't get pregnant for 6 months afterwards.  My kids are going to be fucking weird anyway, we don't need them coming out with four eyes or an extra arm and whatnot.

But then there's the other part, the shittier part of not having a thyroid.  Since the thyroid controls and regulates all of your hormones and I don't have one, I am like a giant wad of anxiety and tears 24/7.  It's really hard to explain and even harder for me to even understand how I feel.  Not having a thyroid can cause depression, although I don't feel depressed.  But I have anxiety like I've never experienced before.  The sound of people talking and laughing around me makes me want to run away and hide in a corner.  Strangers or family and friends, it doesn't matter.  Or I get weepy and and upset for absolutely no reason.  I have probably teared up about 20 times at work today and I don't have any clue why.  (well I kind of do, partially due to the voices and volume of certain people near me)  And my short-term memory is completely shot to hell.  I will forget the answer to a question that I asked you yesterday or just a few hours ago.  (just ask Kari!)  Last night I just didn't feel "right".  I didn't feel like myself.  I wasn't upset or sad or depressed, I just felt "weird" because I don't have any hormone regulation going on right now.  But I can't even describe to you what "weird" feels like.  It's so frustrating!  And WEIRD!  I'm on a slow-acting thyroid replacement medication since surgery to just get me through radiation.  Next week I go off of the meds for two weeks in preparation for the radiation treatment and I am fucking scared to death.  If I'm feeling like this ON the meds, imagine what I will feel like for two weeks OFF of them.  I'll probably feel like this, times a bajillion:

After radiation I'll be put on a permanent thyroid med that will hopefully make me feel more like myself.  I've joined a Thyroid Cancer Survivor's support group and it's been a relief to find out that these feelings of anxiety and overall weirdness are totally normal and not permanent.  They will go away and I will feel better.  I won't feel like I am constantly on the verge of falling asleep every waking second of the day.  I'm hoping that some anti-anxiety meds will also help get me through the really rough days that I know are ahead.

Sometimes I feel like this:

fucking nuts

Or like this:

Or like this:

And most of the time I feel like all three of those, all at the same time.  And the most frustrating part is that I can't explain it.  But I've realized that there is no need to try to find the words to explain it because it's simply biology.  And it's only temporary.  I am lucky to have a wonderful boyfriend, family, and friends that are supportive and understanding and will forgive me if I have a nervous breakdown a time or two in their presence.  There is most definitely a light at the end of the tunnel.  It's just going to take a couple months to get there.

HI