Whole Body Scan: Negative!

Woo hoooooooooooooo! 

I finally got the call yesterday to tell me that my whole body scan done last Wednesday came back completely NEGATIVE.

Negative.  Never has that word sounded so great!  It used to torture me when I was struggling with the concept of negative numbers in the 8th grade, but yesterday it was pure music to my ears.

Breathe huge, massive sigh of relief here.

So that means that I am completely undetectable.  As in no evidence of cancer.  Anywhere.  Anywhere in my body.  For once, my body has agreed to play nice and not torture me.

I have been pretty tired from the whole ordeal, more than I probably realized.  I was just sleepy the whole weekend.  I'm starting to feel a little bit closer to normal today, but I think it took a lot out of me. I didn't really have any side effects from the Thyrogen other than being tired, and the nurse that did the shots was excellent--barely felt them!

This is kind of huge, because it's been two and half years since the TT and blast of RAI--all I've been using to check things since then is blood work.  Luckily it's consistently come back undetectable, but you never know what could be lurking, especially since the original cancer had metastasized to my lymph nodes--I had visions of a rogue node full of thyca that was hiding in there.....the WBS just confirms that there is nothing there that they can see, and I'm fine with that.

Today is a good day.  A very good day.

Thanks St. Peregrine once again....

Does this scanner make me look fat?

Long time no post, but the start of the new school year can do that to you!  Just like July flew by, so did September, and now I find myself in October.  Sigh.

I've looked at my page here a few times but haven't made time to write lately.  Seems like my thyca issues have been overtaken by trying to avoid gluten.  I guess it's a good thing that thyca has faded from the very front screens in my brain--my scar is not very noticeable, my TSH has been happily in the hyper zone to keep me suppressed, so as a result I actually feel pretty good most of the time.  Ok, a little tired because every so often I have a few nights where I just can't sleep for more than a couple of hours, but it's nice to not feel like I'm dragging my puffy ass all over the place just to get through the day.  And people keep telling me that I "look good"--I'll just take it and run with it.

However, thyca jumped right back to the front today--I got the call that I've been scheduled for my thyrogen scan next week.  As in thyrogen shot on Monday, shot #2 on Tuesday, whole body scan with my radioactive tracer on Wednesday.  It's about 2 and half years from the first RAI treatment, so Dr. N figured I could be checked now and, assuming that the thyca is undetectable, I'll be checked again at the 5 year mark. If I'm clear at that point, then she'll go to just blood work to monitor my undetectable-ness.

I thought I'd have to wait until November, but the whole process moved much faster than I thought.  That gives me about a week to work on keeping fear and anxiety at bay.  I'm  holding on to what Dr. N said--I was undetectable immediately after the thyroidectomy, so between the surgery and the RAI, she felt that they probably did a good job getting rid of most of the thyroid tissue.  If there's no thyroid tissue, the cancer has nowhere to reappear, especially since she's kept me well suppressed since the TT, and I haven't had to struggle to stay stable.

I'm hopeful and will be really shocked if things are suddenly detectable.  I often think about my dad who had cancer of the nasopharynx when he was 30, and how he spent the rest of his life dealing with these cancer checkups.  Difference is that I don't have kids to worry about, and I'm a little older.  One thing I always remember is how normal my parents made everything seem, and they must have been petrified with every doctor's appointment.  After watching how they dealt with everything life threw at them and how they kept going, I took note and will be in good shape no matter what the results are.  And I'm taking the day off when I go for the scan.....

More later about the latest edition of school....