My Experience With Thyroid Cancer

Wait, am I not done learning lessons? Argh. So I thought I would find out last week if I have to have radioactive iodine again, but it turns out that I won't know until later this week. My test results are usually available the next morning, but apparently thyroglobulin doesn't come back so soon. I didn't ask my endocrinologist before the blood tests when I would know the results, so I made a wrong assumption. I've done that many times, and it's not any less disappointing this time versus in July when I assumed I would know other results. Friday morning I woke up to an email from Kaiser that I had test results ready, which I get every morning after I get blood tests. The only results available were for my TSH and free T4 unfortunately. I asked my endocrinologist and she said the test for thyroglobulin was sent to the University of Southern California and we'll have the results in a week or so. So that's a bummer. My TSH was 0.01. It baffles me that it could ...

I'm due to have labs done on Thursday. I should know at that point if I need to have the radioactive iodine again. I'm really hoping I don't have to do it again, and there are so many reasons for that. Firstly, I really don't want to take three or four weeks off from my job. I especially don't want to take a break because I'm in the new position. Also, as of today I still haven't received any disability payments from my surgery in September. Today marks 12 weeks ago that I filed my disability claim. Like literally right now I'm steaming at the ears thinking about it....so my finances are screwed and I don't think I can bear another lapse in work. And also, being sick hurts and I'm done hurting. A word about the disability stuff--it's impossible to even try to speak to someone about the issue because no matter what day of the week or time of day that I call EDD, I get a message that the maximum number of callers has already been reached that...

I haven't written in about six weeks! There's been a lot of life in these last six weeks too. I think that I did a lot of blogging in October and that had me taking a good close-up look at my life. A lot. And I needed to take a step back. I think there is such a thing as too much self examination. I took another day trip to Lake Tahoe with my friend Olivia before I returned to work. Remember we went right after I learned I'd need a second surgery? It was nice to visit again in cooler weather, and in better health. I went back to work on November 5 after seven weeks off. I think my superiors would have understood if I wanted to take it slow, but I wanted to go back full time. At this point I had not gotten any disability money, so I was hurting financially. I was told that EDD in California switched over to an electronic system right when I filed my claim, so I should expect delays. I wasn't expecting a seven week delay because when I had claims this summer, I alw...