I just got off the phone with Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy in Ann Arbor. My Thyrogen is in. That means I am finally going to have my whole-body scan to see if there are any remaining thyroid cancer cells in my body. My bloodwork hasn’ t shown any signs of tumor growth, but the scan will look at the cellular level. I nearly had a meltdown on the phone…it was so, so weird. They basically just called and asked me for my birthdate before they would even reveal why they were calling, and then I had to pay my $250 co-pay over the phone before they would ship it to UofM. Maybe it’s the anxiety, but that REALLY annoyed me. I told the pharmacist, “This is an insane way to deal with cancer patients that have been waiting 8 months for medication. I want to hang up on you, but I am afraid you’ll give my Thyrogen to someone else.”
Well, you survivors out there know what this means…low-iodine diet. Here are just a few items I will have to part with for two whole weeks:
- Milk
- Cheese
- Yogurt
- Chocolate
- Bread
- Salt
- Pre-packaged or restaurant food of any kind
I seriously feel like crying. I probably won’t even lose weight. Speaking of, there has been ZERO change from upping my Synthroid to 125 mcg, so I made an appointment with a holistic doctor. She’s going to try to compound T3/T4 thyroid medication for me, but I don’t have my blood tests back yet to determine the exact ratio. I was supplementing with iodine and selenium (it wasn’t effective), and she told me to stop. That’s a good thing, since now I have to deplete all of the iodine in my body.
Okay, let’s try to be positive. Ideally, I will go on this stupid diet for two weeks, get two injections, and then get the scan over with. (Hopefully there is no iodine in Xanax, because I am not going in that giant tube without it!) There will be no microscopic cancer in my body. Then I will start on my perfectly compounded (and probably very expensive) thyroid medication, and by summer I will be completely back to normal.
Right?
Thyroidless 