| Home | Adventures | Contact Info | Links |
|
Chapter 12 "The Hormone Wars" 8/10/04  Lot's of people ask how I feel right now, so here it is. I'm slow--physically and mentally (though some will argue this has always been the case). My top speed: amble (I can mosey if I'm really in a hurry.) And the words…don't come quickly. Which is most frustrating of all. As someone who makes jokes about everything, I rely on words to come in a timely manner. And now, well, they come slowly, if at all.
I always feel right on the verge of a nap. Like I could fall asleep at any moment, except I don't. So I do what I can until I do fall asleep. Reading 4 or 5 pages from a book or letting my eyes glaze over watching Judge Judy. I'm also having trouble regulating my temperature. I'm hot. I'm cold. I'm cold. I'm hot. I'm hot and cold at the same time. I'm usually a little bit dizzy, even sitting here now the room is not completely still. And if I get off the couch faster than a snail I have to steady myself. I went to my gynecologist today (you know, the one who found the cancer in my neck). I told her how I was feeling and thorough as she is she sent me right over to her husband (my endocrinologist) who put me on a low dose of thyroid replacement hormone "so I'd be able to get out of bed" as he put it.  I guess it's a certain kind that gets out of your system fast so it's ok for me to take it but I'll have to stop taking even that a week or two before radiation. The reason I can't be on thyroid hormones now is because it will help the radiation work better. Here's the story as I understand it (boy would my high school science teacher be proud!) Your thyroid controls your body's pace (metabolism). It does this using iodine. Thyroid cells (and thyroid cancer cells) soak up iodine; nothing else in your body does this. Your pituitary gland releases the hormone that tells your thyroid to get going (TSH) and the thyroid responds using iodine as its gas. Except I don't have a thyroid, so my pituitary gland is yelling and yelling to no avail. BUT any thyroid cancer cells left in my neck will be like "HEY, over heeeeere! I'm here, I'm here! I'm starving for some iodine so I can go!" That's when we'll feed those poor little suckers the iodine they've been craving (radioactive iodine that is). If I have thyroid hormone in my system, my pituitary won't yell as much and the cancer cells won't be jumping up and down and hungry (so we can poison them). More about what your thyroid does  My endocrinologist was annoyed at my oncologist for not putting me on ANYTHING or at least for not warning me well enough of what exactly to expect. Next week I go to the oncologist who will probably be mad at my endocrinologist for putting me on hormones at which point he'll tell me to stop taking them. And of course the reason I was there in the first place was to get more birth control pills (a different kind of hormone). So I can't help but conjure up an image of Doctors dressed like Buck Rogers shooting laser hormones all over the place. So next week, I, Follicular Cancer Lady, will once more go to battle. I will battle to protect the small but golden amount of thyroid replacement hormone that Lord Endocron has bestowed upon me. Will Follicular Cancer Lady prevail? You'll have to tune in next week…..
|