Papeleo

I love the Spanish word for mindless paperwork: papeleo.  I don't know why, it just sounds neat to me and I like saying it.  Pah-pal-ay-o.  I think there is an accent over the e.

I'm drowning in it.

I'm currently buried under a pile of college recommendation requests and will not come up for air until Monday.  Then I'll be buried under the end of term 1 grading that has to get done so I can submit my grades by Thursday morning.

It's after 1 am, and I have literally been sitting in front of my computer since about 2pm.  I got 8 letters done and submitted.  I have 7 more to do tomorrow.  The other 37 are mostly due by January 1st.

I ate an entire Ritter Sport dark chocolate hazelnut bar due to the stress.  And I asked Mr. Wonderful to come up with a dinner plan so I could keep typing.  Some how a combo of pancakes, tortilla chips and rice-a-roni did not sound appetizing to me.  How in the world did I manage to marry the only fireman in the universe who can't cook?  I gently talked him out of the cabinets, made him step away from the freezer and got him to heat up some fish cakes, sweet potato fries and a make a salad.  Take out would have been easier.

If I had been able, I would have worked on these letters  bit by bit all fall.  However, I've been swamped with basic planning, prepping and correcting.  I've been at school most days til 5 or 6pm.  I don't know where the time is going this year--I think I'm losing a lot of it to searching the building for functioning printers, copiers and risograph machines.  And bathrooms with toilet paper.  And dealing with seniors with multiple life crises.  And talking to parents who won't let their kids make mistakes.  Sigh.

Please think twice before you throw in my face that teachers don't work enough.

On a happy note, my cold thingy is getting better.  The cough is gone, antibiotics done and the raspy voice sounds kind of sexy.  I'm still not singing soprano though.

I'm going to go collapse now.

Cough cough sniffle sniffle...must be the end of October.

And time for my annual upper respiratory infection!  Like freakin' clockwork. 

Excuse me while I hack up a lung.  

Today is my first official sick day of the school year.  I'm kind of bummed too, because I put together a fantastic salad for lunch, and a great yogurt berry mix for breakfast.  Guess I'll have to eat them later today.  I wasn't planning on calling in today, but the lack of sleep due to non-stop coughing made me think twice.  The familiar chest pain helped me make my decision, so I managed to get in a sick visit with the physician's assistant this morning. 

Result:  a Zpack of antibiotics, nasal spray and cough syrup with coedine.  She said I didn't look that bad and there was no fever, but given my recent thyca battle and tired immune system, she said the Zpack would help.  Also agreed that I probably would not have been able to fight this off on my own either.  So I'm glad I went. Except, they made me put on a surgical mask when I got to the office, and I had to leave it on until she examined me.  Ugh--talk about feeling claustrophobic! 

On a happy note, my blood pressure was normal! 

I'm also happily sipping hot water with lemon creamed raw honey and apple cider vinegar--so good!!  I think it has helped things from getting worse.  The creamed honey came from the farmer's market at a rest stop on the MA Pike and is out of this world good.  Website is Honeybees-r-us.com and they are from Palmer.  The creamed honey with cinnamon is amazing and easy to spread on toast.

OMG what are my chances of finding a cartoon like this?  Take off the beard and it's me, right down to the color of the jacket.  Hee hee hee.  This comes from a site by Brian Germain, Angry Art Teacher.  Except I wouldn't call them pansies, they would be snowflakes.  And I wouldn't ever directly tell a kid to shut up.  That's where sarcasm comes in.  Or that I can swear in Spanish under my breath and they wouldn't understand me anyway.  

Strange thing is that I get sick like this every year.  Every year.  The kids usually start the trend first and come in coughing all over the place.  Once the first box of kleenex on the windowsill  is emptied and replaced, I know it's a matter of time. The school department policy used to be that the heat would not be turned on officially until October 15, meaning we'd have a couple of chilly days before it went on.  As of last Friday, the heat had been turned on once (I could smell it instead of feel it).  It was on for 15 mintues, and then went off again.  I've been bundled up in my bright magenta fleece every day for the last two weeks in an attempt to keep warm.  We've had a couple of nights with temps in the 30s too, and some cold days.  Public education at its best once again!  Do you really think that freezing us  to near death will improve anything?

Back to bed for now....

Thyca gets the attention of Congress!

Been so *&;^%$ busy lately!  I've been enjoying my undetectable status and not giving thyca much of a thought, which is a good thing I think. 
This caught my attention though...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/20/ap/cabstatepent/main6974320.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CBSNewsTheEarlyShowLeisure+(CBS+News%3A+The+Early+Show%3A+Leisure)

Remember when I was glowing?  I think too many of us were glowing and it caught someone's attention.....

Massachusetts congressman Ed Markey is asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to look at how RAI patients dealing with life post-RAI and how much danger they are putting other people in by exposing them to radiation.  I particiapted in survey through the Thyca website about my experiences post-RAI and whether or not I had been given adequate information about how to isolate myself. 
I felt that my hospital did a great job providing me with info and asking me questions about  my living conditions, and I did a ton of research on my own in preparation for glowing.  In the US, it is common practice to take the RAI pill and then go home.  Some doctors will have their patients stay inpatient for up to 3 days, and at one point they used to tell patients to stay in hotel for 72 hours.  According to the study, it is more common in Europe for thyca patients to do RAI inpatient for a few days.  Kinda scary that you could check into a hotel room that was recently vacated by an RAI glowworm, no?  What about the housekeeping staff that had to clean the room with no knowlege that the linens were giving off radiation?  What moron thought an unnanounced hotel stay while radioactive was a good idea?? 

Hmm. 

Supposedly, if anyone came near me within the first 24 hours after the RAI, the radiation exposure was no more than a chest x-ray. 

I was in a good position--no small children at home, no infants at home or in my social circles, and no pregnant women to worry about that might come near me.  I was able to send my cats to my sister's house, and my husband was able to sleep on the couch.  Ok, I did have to whip a blanket off of him in the middle of the night when I realized that I had been wrapped up in it earlier in the first day after RAI, but that was actually pretty funny.  The look on his face at 2 am was priceless. 

I'm not sure if it would have made a difference for me to be inpatient?  I live in a condo, but my unit doesn't touch the walls of the neigboring units since there is an elevator shaft on one side and a utility closet on the other side.  I had a ride home and stayed in the house for more than 72 hours since I felt so crappy afterwards.

I did have a letter stating that I had been given RAI, and the staff did tell me that I would set off a radiation detector.  If you look back at the posts in May, you can see a pic of the Geiger counter Mr. Wonderful used on me daily to see how radioactive I was...it was scarily funny.  I was still making the thing beep a month later (though not much), and I read somewhere that the radioactive iodine continues to work in your system for 6 months to a year after inital RAI treatment. 

Apparently Congressman Markey wants the NRC to tighten up its regulations for RAI treatment, banning all travel on public transportation for 2 days and banning hotel stays.  I don't know if he's pushing for all inpatient stays, and I'm sure the insurance companies will push back at paying for hospital rooms that the patient just sits in, alone and isolated with no staff attention.  We'll see.  Nice to see Thyca in the news, and nice to see someone paying attention. 

I did feel really strange leaving the hospital that day, heading for the car--I don't know how many people I passed by, but I could feel my mouth burning up as the pill started working.  Not to mention my lovely chauffeur who was more exposed than most people.  I still wonder if I gave off a subtle neon glow....

It will be interesting to see if this changes anything.  If the damn cancer comes back, I'll have to do RAI again.   

As for now, feeling pretty damn good even though my hair continues to fall out, my weight is annoying the hell out of me and I am ravenously hungry.  All the time.  I wanted my metabolism to wake up, but this is ridiculous!  Still eating like a crazed rabbit while sneaking bits of chocolate here and there....

Never know who is paying attention to what....

Funny story today--one of my kids from last year came by to chat since I'm writing her college letter of recommendation.  She told me that she was like the star of her biology class recently.  She was able to describe what the thyroid did, and no one else had the answer.  The follow up question was, "What does someone have to do if they don't have a thyroid gland?" She was very happy she could announce that you needed to take hormones for the rest of your life.

Made me chuckle....

Simply undetectable!

Sing along with Robert Palmer and his lovely ladies!! 

Simply undetectable

Simply undetectable

RAI is so powerful, huh

It's simply unavoidable

The trend is irreversible (I hope)

The woman is invincible (for now!) 

Simply undetectable...

Yup, back from a visit with Dr. N, and the cancer is still UNDETECTABLE!  Whew.  I have now graduated to a 3 month bloodwork check, so I don't have to face another needle until January.  She was happy with my current status for the most part.  TSH is holding around 0.09, which is solidly in the hyper range and shouldn't go much more hyper.  She wants me to stay there, so no change in the levoxyl for now;  I'll stay at .125mcg. Thyroglobulin and thyroid antibodies are both negative.  My blood pressure was the overachiever of the day, clocking in at 110/78.  It's never been that nicely low when taken in the office.  And I'm not on any blood pressure meds either since I kind of stopped taking it during hypo hell--I kind of forgot.  When I started checking the BP at home and it was regularly normal, I was impressed.  I'm figuring the thyroid was key in messing that up.  


On a slight downer, my weight was up 8 lbs.  Sigh.  Part of it could be PMS if my system kicks into gear on schedule this month.  I'm probably perimenopausal too, so my hormones are likely all over the place.  She'll check them in January, and if the estrogen is too low, we'll have to talk about options....hyperthyroid state plus low estrogen equals osteoporosis.  Mom had osteoporosis.  I'm way too clumsy to be stuck with fragile bones, so I'll have to do some researching and see what my options are if I need them.  


But I'm sooooooo  psyched.  I survived the first month back to school in one piece, and my classes seem to be going fine.  I'm feeling pretty decent most of the time except for occasional cognitive issues where I can't remember things like before, or I have difficulty processing incoming info.  She said that's how it is due to my thyroidless state.  Apparently I'm taking the right combo of multivitamins and calcium with vitamin D too. I just need to make some form of exercise routine.  Which I know.  And I've talked and talked about it for years.  Bottom line is that I hate to exercise.   However, Dr. N also said that my being just slightly hyper was enough to stimulate my appetite and make me more hungry (which I am--see previous post with evil bunny), but not enough to cause the weight to fall off like I wish it would.  It went on stealthily--can't it just disappear the way it appeared?  Then I could look like one of Robert Palmer's girls!  One can dream....Dr. N suggested I try WiiFit.  I don't know anything about it, but she said she has another patient has used it and lost 55 lbs.  Sigh.  As I munch on some chocolate.  C'mon--it was all fruit and green stuff all day, and I mean all day, dinner included.  The chocolate has some hazelnuts in it--does that count for something nutritious?  


Ok, so the Robert Palmer lyrics are lame, but that tune pops in my head each time I hear the bloodwork results, and if I started singing them in the office, Dr. N would think I was insane.  


I'm going to spend the rest of the  evening enjoying the big feeling of relief and bask in Dr. N's smile while we chatted today.  While my reproductive system continues its revolt, at least the cancer is completely suppressed.  Given everything else that has gone on, I can deal with rebelling ovaries.  


Thanks once again St. Peregrine!  Time to go dance some salsa....