Radioactive

Yesterday, I went to the hospital and took my radioactive iodine pill. That is what you take with thyroid cancer  instead of general radiation. The thyroid cells absorb iodine so they attach the radiation to iodine, it gets absorbed by the thyroid cells left over after the thyroidectomy, and kills them. I didn't really want to do it, but I have to have a body scan anyway and the radiation will show up on the scan if there are any other areas of concern. I feel fine, a little tied maybe from being off my thyroid pills for a couple weeks. You have to be hypothyroid when you get the radiation pill. Don't really understand why. Don't really care, just ready to move on. I have been very indifferent about everything, I think it is a depression or something from being hypothyroid. I'm also starving, I can see how you could gain weight with an underproducing thyroid.

In some ways, even without my thyroid pill, I think I feel better than I did before surgery. I don't know what it was doing, but I am functioning on less sleep better than I could before. Or maybe it is because my babies are 3 and 4 now. Of course, they still stay up with me until midnight most nights. They are at that age where they can't get through the day without a nap , but won't nap until 5:00, the witching hour. I need to get a grip on that situation. 

I can't be around my kids for 4 days. I am locked in my room now listening to them play with my 13 year old. She is amazing with them. They love her so much. It is adorable to listen to them giggling while she tricks them into getting dressed. It is also torture to not be able to squeeze on them. Bob is taking them to his mom's for the weekend. They don't know I am in here, or they wouldn't stay away. 

It is funny how you take contact with your kids for granted. I got to kiss Trev and Whit but they had to leave quickly. I wanted them to stay and I wanted to hold them. But every other day I do it mindlessly and don't realize what a gift that simple thing is. I have to keep my glands functioning and I woke up with dry eyes so I got on the computer to find something to make me cry. I watched Diane Sawyer's interview with Jaycee Dugard and cried and cried at the pictures of her mom looking for her. Not being able to hold her for 18 years. A hug is such a gift, and most of the time we do it so mindlessly we don't feel it or even remember it. 

My cancer is gone, we assume, but in quiet, alone moments, like the shower the last two mornings, my mind wonders about it being somewhere else. Anywhere else would be significantly more dangerous and frightening. When I was young, I always thought everyone could be cured, but I know better as an adult. I know it's dramatic, but every once in a while, I think about it anyway. I'll think about it every time I go in for a scan for the rest of my life. 

I don't have many regrets here, but I would regret not being more patient with my kids, and more understanding. I'd regret not listening and I'd regret enforcing the fact that I am the mother so I get to be right, even if I'm not. I am so good at holding babies and closing my eyes and breathing them in and giggling at their voices, but not as good at absorbing my big kids. Watching THEM in wonder. It is harder for me to appreciate the character they show and value it because I just expect it. And I would regret not holding them more, and tickling them and tucking them in. 

I used to lay with them at night and sing Dolly Parton's "Jolene" or  give them the creeps with "Poison Ivy". As soon as I am not radioactive, I'm going to start again, because even if cancer never comes back, we could be separated by something else, like growing up, and I don't want to wish I had loved them more, or better.

Thyroid cancer has given me a few unexpected gifts and insights. Or perhaps, God has given me a few unexpected gifts and insights. As always, He has everything under control. So I'm just going to go with it.