contaminated.

I am contaminated.  This morning I went to visit my friends at the Swedish Radiology department for my RAI treatment.  The people at Swedish are very nice and since it was the third day in a row that I had been there, they knew who I was.  Michael at the Radiology check-in desk greeted me with, "Gretchen - you're back!" and the registration lady remembered me and confirmed that all was approved by my insurance company.  The same nice nurse Jim escorted me back to the room for the third time.  I had already gotten blood drawn at my doctor's office but they had to do another draw for a pregnancy test (they don't want to be responsible for frying any unborn children with their radiation), sign my life away on a bunch of consent forms, discuss the treatment with Dr. Kang the radiologist, then finally I could take the magic pills and be on my way. 

Side note: When I say "magic pills" it reminds me of the book Sylvester and the Magic Pebble I used to read when I was a kid - which Wikipedia tells me has been banned in some parts of the country.  Poor Sylvester :(

My dosage was split into two pills.  Jim brought them to me in their special containers.  The first was in a metal pill bottle with a special little individual capsule holder so that I didn't have to actually touch the capsule.  The second pill was delivered by Jim in a heavy metal brick-like thing with the pill bottle inside of it.  Apparently that was the more powerful pill. 

After I took the pills I was sent home and warned not to do anything that would make me nauseous so that I didn't throw up and expel the pills - because a) no one wants to clean up radioactive puke and b) I'd have to take the pills again and that would just get complicated.  Fortunately this wasn't a concern. 

Nothing eventful to report from the rest of the day, except a FaceTime call with my mom, Bridget, Catherine, and Spencer - "Hi Aunt Gretchen, I hope you feel better!" (repeat that 10 times x 2 girls) - then I watched some TV and took a nice long nap in the afternoon. 

I am following all sorts of rules, like flush the toilet twice, use paper plates and disposable utensils, flush used tissues, etc, etc - basically I need to carefully dispose of my bodily fluids.

So far I'm not green and I don't think I'm glowing, but I'll let you know if that changes.  (and take photos, as requested by many of you.)

-g