Follicular Cancer Lady - Chapter 14: Hungry Hungry Hypo

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Chapter 14
Hungry Hungry Hypo: The Joys of the Low Iodine Diet
8/20/04

For the next 3 weeks I have the pleasure of following the Low Iodine Diet. This is so when I go for radioactive iodine, the remainder of cancer cells in my neck will be nice and hungry. You may be asking yourself, "What kinds of things can you eat on the Low-Iodine Diet?"
Here's a simple test. Think of a food you like to eat, any food.

Got one?

Well you can't have that on the Low-Iodine diet! Get the idea?

On this diet I'm basically allowed to eat: water and un-salted saltines. I'm kidding of

course, it's not that bad. I can have bread, as long as it's not from the store because "commercial" bakery products contain io-something or other. A very dejected Pillsbury Doughboy, is in my kitchen right now packing up his Pop-N-Fresh (sorry DB no matter how many times you do that cute little laugh, it's just not going to work). I'm not allowed to eat any dairy or soy products, anything containing red dye #5, or anything that has been in or around the sea. Such as sea kelp. Damn, I guess it's no more Twizzler and sea kelp sandwiches for me. That's too bad, I rather enjoyed those.

Actually, I'm probably eating healthier now than I ever have in my life. I can eat any fresh fruits and vegetables. Somehow those never quite made it to our house before. I've found that they don't keep as well as frozen corn dogs and Hot Pockets. In my house "fresh" food is a new jar of peanut butter that hasn't had a spoon dipped in it yet. The few times when we did branch out and buy some veggies it resulted in the following conversation 3 months later:
Steph: "Is that smell coming from the kitchen?"
Danny: "Hmm...maybe we should check the Crisper drawer"
Steph: "Oh my god…what IS that? Did it just MOVE?"

We went Low-Iodine grocery shopping on Monday to prepare for my diet. We were so proud of ourselves for having a "grown up" shopping cart. In other words, we were buying more than just Kraft macaroni and cheese, ketchup, Chef Boyardee and Pop Tarts. We often

get, "Oh you must have kids." Nope. No kids, just a bad hankering for some Beefaroni. Having vegetables in the house was like having little aliens we didn't know what to do with. We sat and stared at our garden of produce like two brand new parents who'd never seen a baby. (What's it doing? What does it want? Am I holding this right?).

I have to say I think I've done pretty well so far. My friend Pam leant us her bread maker and we are now the proud owners of our first loaf of bread. I'm starting to get used to eating plain rice cakes with unsalted peanut butter. And we have lots of veggies, none in the Crisper of course (it's still airing out from the last casualty).

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