A Cancer Survivor & Fighter's Blog
Well tomorrow is the big day. Initially I thought today was when I would be getting the whole body scan, but my protocol is a little different than I thought. Wednesday I got a 5mCi dose of I-131 and today I got a 2mCi dose of I-123. The I-131 came in a little test tube with a straw and the I-123 was a pill.
I have to admit I am a *huge* worrier so I’m a little freaked out right now because when they did the uptake studies today the tech commented that I had a “large” amount of uptake. What does that mean?!?!?! I expect to have some, because no surgeon can perfectly remove the entire thyroid remnant but does that mean I am shot full of cancer in all my lymph nodes? I sure hope not.
I was looking at my path report again after the thyroidectomy and I keep coming back to how large the tumor was…3.5cm. Anything over 1cm is considered “large” and it seems like 4cm is associated with a much poorer outcome. Blah. At this point I’m just counting on my extremely tough Potter family genes to get my through to a good outcome even if I have a poor prognosis.
Luckily even with incurable thyroid cancer you can live a really long time and be relatively symptom free. That’s what gives me hope.
My name is Kate Stowell. I’m a cancer survivor two times over! I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 1997 and diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer in 2009. Besides surviving cancer, I am a graduate of SUNY Geneseo (2004) and SUNY Binghamton (2006) and work as a registered nurse in a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I have two wonderful children, a loving husband, and a sweet black lab. The purpose of this blog is to keep a record of all the ups and downs my growing family goes through both during treatment and everyday life. I welcome questions and comments. Welcome!
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