In case you wanted an update...

It's a good day.  Mostly.  I don't have all the good news yet but I'm expecting more soon.

You may have read in a post last year that I had cancer.  It's now a year and a half since I had my radiation treatment so after my blood test yesterday, a standard checkup, I was sent in to get an ultrasound.  One short day later (that'd be today) I recieved great news!  There's nothing there.  Well, I mean it's obvious that the thyroid isn't there - I'd be mighty conerned if it was - but there was nothing else there, and THAT'S the good news.  No new lumps, bumps or cancer that they can see.  YIPPY SKIPPY!

So here's the rest of the scoop.  Since the time of my intial diagnosis, the process of treatment and maintenance of thyroid cancer has changed drastically.  Where there used to be no documentation or processes, there is now a 51 page document outlingig the steps the doctors have to put their patients through.  The ultrasound was the first step in the process.  There are two possible next steps:

The first option involves getting two shots of Thyrogen, a day apart, followed by a blood test two days later.  It will likely go like this:  Monday: Ouch, a shot.  Tuesday: Ouch, another shot.  Friday: OUCH!  The blood letting.  The Thyrogen is a drug that tricks the body into thinking that it's not taking Levoxyl (the med I take every day to act in place of the thyroid I don't have).  The best part is that the Thyrogen accomplishes in 4 days what would take my body to do a few weeks.  Not to mention it avoids the crazy-factor that is typically involved with going off the Levoxyl.  If the blood test comes back normal despite the stimulus of the Thyrogen then I'm good to go and will be considered cancer-free.  This, of course, is the optimal option.  However, here's the rub.  Insurance companies don't often approve this process without the inclusion of a radiation scan following the blood test.  The radiation test sucks.  So this brings us to option two, which is far more annoying.  

This second option would involve all the steps noted above, but would also include the necessity of me going off Levoxyl and getting an additional blood test to check for pregnancy... blah!  As IF!  Then, once my body is rid of the Levoxyl I've taken for the past year and a half (and my emotions are off the chart and everyone around me hates me) I will have to get another dose of radioactive iodine (yes, that's radiation), and then go back under the full body scanner to make sure there's no cancer left in my body.  And honestly, that's the worst part.  It doesn't hurt in a traditional sense.  No one is poking you, or cutting into you, but you have to lay still for 40 minutes consecutively while they run this machine over your body.  The "bed" that is provided is a 24" wide (approximately) board with a sheet of the doctors hygienic paper over it.  There's no support, no padding.  It's awful.  And I can't read, or listen to music, or talk.  I have to lay still.  Alone.  In a room that is white.  No one else is in there.  So what do I do?  I count the seconds to see how close I can get to the finishing time of the scan.  BOR. ING.  And even worse than this is the human deprivation that I have to endure after I'm given the radiation.  It's like being trapped in a glass cell.  I can't kiss my husband.  I can't cuddle with my dog.  I can't cook.  I can't visit with people.  And I can't sleep in the same bed as my husband.  For four days.  It's SO weird.    And THIS.  This little gem of a process?  This is the procedure that the insurance companies approve.  Go figure.

So obviously I'm hoping for option 1.  If you wouldn't mind keeping your fingers crossed for me that my insurance will approve option 1 I would really appreciate it.  

Thanks for checkin' in.  I'll try to include updates when I can.  I'm hoping for more good information shortly.  I fully expect to kick this cancer's ass!