thankful.

Today is Thanksgiving.  I have so much to be thankful for - today and everyday.  I had a full body scan on Monday and yesterday I had an appointment with my endocrinologist to review the results of my body scan.  I was lucky to have Emily and my mom accompany me to my appointment.  

The body scan picks up any areas in my body where there is iodine present.  Since the thyroid cells are the only cells that take up the iodine, anything that shows up on the scan should be thyroid cells.  So essentially, the scan would show if the cancer had spread anywhere else in my body.

Dr. Buckley was happy to report an excellent prognosis for me.  The scan showed areas of iodine in my neck, which is normal because those are the left behind thyroid cells that took up the iodine and are getting zapped by the radiation.  There is no evidence of cancer anywhere else in my body.  Hooray!!! 

Blood work showed that the levels of my thyroglobulin and thyroglobulin antibodies are right in the range where they should be.  Thyroglobulin is produced by the thyroid and since we have now removed or killed all of the thyroid cells in my body, the thyroglobulin will slowly disappear.  My TSH (Thyroid hormone) level was a little high, so I got bumped up to a slightly higher dosage on my Synthroid again.  

While this is all excellent news and it's what we wanted to hear, there are still a few things we need to watch.  The scan showed some kind of spot on the bottom of my left lung (this also showed up on a CT Scan I had in June), so Dr. Buckley is looking into that and I will likely have to have another scan to look at that more closely.  It could be nothing or it could be a small spot of thyroid cancer.  If it is cancer, it has already taken up the iodine from the radiation so it's already getting nipped.  So this isn't a major concern but it's something that we need to look into further.  

I still have Stage 1 Papillary Thyroid Cancer - the way thyroid cancer works, you are never considered fully cured or a "survivor" due to a high rate of recurrence.  There is about a 20% recurrence rate of this cancer, so I'll get scans at least every year and will be monitored on a regular basis.  In about 6 months, I'll do another iodine scan (another low-iodine diet but without the radioactivity and isolation this time) which will show us again if there are any more thyroid cells in the body.  If they had found anything anywhere else in my body, that would have been a Stage 2 diagnosis. 

This report means that surgery was successful and the Radioactive Iodine treatment is doing its job as well.  I'm thankful to have had access to excellent doctors and medicine and insurance to be able to get the treatment I needed.  I'm thankful for my family and all of my friends who have been so supportive, helpful and loving through this whole ordeal.  I'm thankful for God's love, his mercies, and the many, many blessings he has given me.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

-g

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever."

Psalm 107:1