Sunday, November 30, 2014

bah.

After repeated calls to my endo's office, the nurse/manager finally called and left a detailed message on my cell phone.  The doctor had conferred with my  usual nuclear medicine doctor, who pulled the film and agrees that it's just a calcified node.  They're all happy with that and say I don't have to do anything for a year, when I'll repeat the Thyrogen testing cycle as usual.

I don't want to complain (really, I don't), but this is bunk, and it's contrary to the ATA's long-term management guidelines for differentiated thyroid carcinoma, too, which indicates I probably should've had another dose of RAI.  (Tg>2, dxWBS positive).

I guess the thinking is, the scan was only slightly positive, and watchful waiting is a recommended strategy for low-risk cases.  I don't think I'm a high risk case, but I don't know if I'm low risk.  I think I'll send an email to MDA tomorrow and see if they can look at the scans.

Wednesday, November 05, 2014

wearing & tearing

No news since my appointment last week.  I'm not surprised, although I do come home every day and check the answering machine for calls from the doctor.

I try not to think about it, and generally do a pretty good job of keeping it tucked away, but that takes energy.  It's like a weight on me, one that I have no way of knowing how long I'll be squished under.

It wears on me so.  I hate all my clothes, my hair (not-so-recently cut shorter than I'd wanted) looks stupid, my class last night left me disappointed and everything just seems off.  Being tired doesn't help.

***
I managed last weekend OK: Halloween was mostly driving the 2 younger kids to and from events with friends, so that spared me from dealing with trick-or-treaters most of the night. Saturday I took the 2 older kids to Sozo to hear a 15-year-old blues guitar genius, and Sunday the entire family went to see Ballet Arizona's Swan Lake with the Phoenix Symphony.  It was glorious, and then we went to Euro Cafe for dinner because DD's birthday was fast approaching. 

She requested meat loaf and mashed potatoes for dinner, with a birthday apple pie since she doesn't care for most cake.  I spent most of the last 3 days cooking, to good effect -- the pies came out beautifully.

***

The weather has finally, finally cooled off enough to wear sweaters. Not-summer seemed to take forever to get here, but I know that's subjective, it never cools off until November.  It's amazingly delightful outside now, and quite cool in the mornings.

***

I have a week off of grad school classes, which is good because I have a paper and all sorts of other stuff to do.  So far my lowest grade on an assignment has been 17/20 and I have no problem with that grade. I didn't have time to spend 4 hours writing up a super-detailed lesson plan, so I spent about 30 minutes just giving the broad strokes.  I did what I could in the time I had, and that has to be enough.

***

Even though I'm sure, 100% positive, that whatever I've got isn't going to kill me, or even have any lasting long-term effects on me, I do have a feeling that there's going to be some disruption along the way somewhere, and I'd like to know what that will be, when that will be, and how recovery will go.   I can't manage expectations when I'm in limbo like this, but that's how my mind works best, so I'm constantly hitting this wall of No Information.

***

Time to put all this back in its box & go to bed.