It's Testing Time Again

Follow-up, monitoring, checking for thyroid tissue...

Next week is testing week...meaning I get 2 shots of Thyrogen (one Monday, one Tuesday), a small dose of radioactive iodine on Wednesday, a whole-body scan Thursday and a Thyroglobulin (Tg) blood test Friday to see if anything has changed since my testing last December. My Tg was then 16.7 (hypo, not using Thyrogen), and my scan showed nothing.

Although it's awesome that I don't have to go off Synthroid for my testing this year (instead, I'll get the Thyrgoen injections, which will elevate my TSH for more sensitive testing), this also means my doctor can't compare apples to apples (a Thyrogen-stimulated Tg is always lower than a hypothyroid measurement). Thyrogen-stimulated Tg measurements are typically one-third the level of a hypo-stimulated Tg, so we'll have to keep that in mind when comparing numbers.

Does anyone else besides thyroid cancer patients care about comparing Tgs? ("Dude, what's YOUR Tg? Mine's undetectible.")

I wish for mine to be undetectible, because this would mean I have NO thyroid tissue anywhere in my body, and I would finally earn my NED (no evidence of disease) badge.

Yes, please!

In other news, my salivary glands are super pissed this week and last. It's likely I have permanent damage from my 2 radioactive iodine treatments. My mouth is dry, and I've had a lot of jaw pain near my parotid glands, which has resulted in some doozy headaches.

Good news: I ran the inaugural "Rock N Roll Los Angeles" half-marathon yesterday with my sister and 3 dear friends--Diane, Lisa and Valerie.

Bad news: a woman died at the Biltmore Hotel (where we stayed) on Saturday morning, a few hours before we checked in. It's not known yet whether it was a homicide, a suicide or an accident, although her husband has been questioned. "America's Got Talent" auditions were being held at the hotel, too (in addition to it being the host hotel for the half-marathon), and this made the scene at the hotel completely, absolutely, depressingly surreal. (Picture young girls in sequined costumes with guitars and cowboy hats, an obese transvestite whose "talent" was unclear but whose makeup and dress were scary as all hell, a gaggle of orange-turbaned dancers...all these people milling about the hotel lobby, singing and rehearsing and in costume...while policemen were swarming everywhere...investigating a death.) Our floor, the 11th, is said to be the floor from which the woman fell down the staircase (she's rumored to have fallen all the way to the 3rd floor), so we had an extra share of cops 20 feet from our room, at the top of the stairwell.

Is this what blogging is for? I highly doubt it, but I had a really weird weekend, and I'm getting ready to find out where I stand with thyroid cancer, and I really wanted to get all this off my chest!

I'll write next week as I get my testing stuff done...