Out of the gate, slowly

[5:20am, scant seconds after silencing the clock radio with a slap across the top of its head]

Turtle: I'm sorry.
Foo: What?
Turtle: The cupcakes.

[dramatic pause. freshly-wakened neurons stretch, sputter half-heartedly, and ultimately shrug non-existent shoulders]

Foo: What the hell?
Turtle: 'Cause my leg kicked out.
Foo: Honey, what are you talking about?
Turtle: I don't know.

The gauntlet run

Most anyone who has read this blog for any period of time knows that I had a smallish run-in with thyroid cancer, back in 2001. Most cautiously agree that I'm cured – except the life insurance providers, of course – but ensuring that I stay that way demands a certain level of vigilance. What that means is that I must periodically submit myself to a week-long protocol of injections, followed by the ceremonial swallowing of a radioactive iodine capsule, culminating in an hour-long full-body scan.

It's all fairly routine by this point, but the week was not without its notable moments.

First off…

Since you've stayed with me this far, it's only fair to come right out with the good news (there is no bad news in this posting, so please… relax). After yesterday's scan, I received a phone call from the radiologist informing me that my scan was clear of any glowy bits. Glowy bits would have been bad, indicating thyroid cells that had absorbed the radioactive iodine. Since I no longer have a thyroid, thyroid cells could only mean cancer. So no glowy bits is a Good Thing™.

I thank God for granting me a continuation of my nearly eight years cancer free.

But there was a moment

The full body scan is actually done in stages, kind of like a series of x-rays. While the technician was repositioning equipment between scans, I happened to look over at the monitor where an image of the just-completed scan was displayed. It showed a bright blob of light (the aforementioned “glowy bit”), and I was filled with unease while lying there through the rest of the series.

As I gathered my things to leave, I commented on this to the technician.

“Oh, that's just a marker,” she said. “Remember when I was touching your neck? We place a radioactive marker on the [somethingorother] notch – where your collarbones meet – because it's right below where your thyroid used to be. It gives the doctor a reference point for that big dark area right above the notch.”

Big dark areas = Good Thing™, but I'd spooked myself. That's what I get for knowing just enough to be dangerous.

There Will Be Blood

After the scan in Dallas, I had to drive up to Baylor, in Plano, to have my blood drawn. I usually do this sort of thing at first light, at an hour that most people don't have the stomach for, but not this time. The waiting room at the lab was packed, and I carefully picked a chair that would observe the social nicety of preserving an empty chair between mine and that of any other occupied chair.

This honoring of personal space was especially important, because the occupant of one of those chairs was actually overflowing into the empty chair buffer zone. A short woman, her feet barely reaching the floor, she was very… colorful in her attire, hair color, and makeup selections. As I sat down, she lay slumped in her chair with the topmost of her three chins nestled in the others, snoring.

Her purse, which appeared to have been fashioned from the remainders of her dress, suddenly slid off her lap on to the floor. I spent a few moments in internal debate before deciding that, while the gentlemanly thing would be to pick it up and hand it back to her, it might be best to let sleeping potential litigants lie. Shortly, the question was made moot when one of the technicians came in to the waiting room, calling the name of someone who didn't answer. Several of us tentatively pointed to the sleeping woman.

Waking her was no simple matter, and getting her up and moving toward the lab was less so; but the technician managed, carefully leading her still-groggy, muttering patient by the elbow. As they left the waiting room, those of us who remained shot each other looks that said, Whoa, dude. That was, like, kinda weird.

I, of course, couldn't just return to examining the multimedia prints from Target that filled the empty space on the walls and leave well enough alone.

“I saw her purse fall and felt like I should pick it up,” I said, speaking more or less directly to a fellow patient who had smiled at me. “But then I sort of had this premonition of myself in handcuffs, trying to call my wife from a pay phone.”

For a moment, the waiting room was filled with tension-dispelling laughter before we all returned to the serious business of disacknowledging one another's existence.

Luck of the draw

After a while, I was called to have my blood drawn. My previous experience at this lab had been less than satisfactory, with the technician clumsily tapping two different veins before getting his sample. I drew a young woman, this time, and crossed my fingers as I sat down in the bloodletting chair.

“This is usually a good producer,” I said, indicating a favorite vein in my left arm. “But the last guy I had here didn't have much luck.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. You must have had Peter,” she said, glancing at the technician working at another station.

“Um… that's him. I'm sure he was just having an off day.”

“Oh no,” she said. “Peter sucks. He knows he sucks. Just this morning, one of the patients accused him of being the janitor, he made such a bloody mess of the guy's draw.”

Just an unfortunate choice of words, I hope.

For the record, my technician was so smooth, I barely felt the needle and today show only the very smallest of bruises.

Dawn's early light

Act I

[6:30am CST]

Co-worker: [from a cubicle in the next row] Who's that I hear rustling around? Who's crazy enough to be here at this time of the morning?
Foo: It's just me.
Co-worker: What are you doing here so early?
Foo: I've been here this early for about 14 years.
Co-worker: That's just crazy.
Foo: Think about that, the next time you consider dragging me into a meeting at 4:00. It could be just the thing to push me over the edge. You've seen CSI. You know how unstable we crazy people can be.

Act II

Co-worker (a different one): There's no toilet paper in the men's room! And the soap dispensers are all empty! What the hell?
Foo: Please stop touching my cubicle.

Failure to lunch

Every workday for the past seven years, I've gotten out of bed, showered (and sometimes shaved), and then packed myself a lunch. If I'm reasonably awake, I make a sandwich, select some sort of fruit cup and maybe a pudding, bag up some manner of Frito-Lay product, and pack it all neatly inside a purpose-made Cordura® nylon lunch bag. If I'm not so awake, I may grab a hot pocket or a Lean Cuisine dinner instead of making the sandwich.

I then gather up my lunch bag, my travel mug filled with black coffee, and my sausage-egg-and-cheese biscuit and carry them out to the car. I open Dorian's rear hatch, set my lunch next to the old ball and chain my laptop, and close the hatch. I climb behind the wheel, set my coffee in the cup holder and my sausage bicuit bowl in the passenger's seat next to me.

It's all quite routine.

This morning, I seem to have missed a step, but I wasn't sure which one – until that “Oh crap. Was that a curb or a small child I just backed over??” moment. Fortunately, it was neither. It was my lunch, which I'd set down behind the car to open the hatch but then, instead of opening the hatch, had proceeded directly to the climbing behind the wheel step.

The lunch bag suffered minimal damage (being, as it is, Cordura®). The potato chips, slice of pasteurized cheese product, hamburger bun, and one of the two cutey oranges were totaled. The frozen pre-grilled hamburger patty was cracked but otherwise unmarred. The cup of pineapple chunks was, miraculously, unexploded.

I have far too much on my mind.

Credit where it's due

I suppose it was bound to happen, eventually. This past weekend, I was down at Geek Heaven MicroCenter picking up a new surge protector I needed after rearranging Turtle's office. After standing in the checkout line for… well, ever… I finally got my turn at the register. I swiped my credit card and prepared to snatch my receipt before sprinting to the door.

“Sir,” the kid behind the register sirred me. “Would you mind swiping your card again? It didn't go through.”

No big deal. The card was only a few months short of its expiry date, and the magnetic strip was probably on its last… um… bits. I swiped it again.

This time, the cashier picked up the phone and started punching in some numbers. When I asked what the problem was, he explained that the bank had flagged my card. Flagged. My. Card. Remember Galileo's experiments with gravity? The pit of my stomach is where his cannonballs struck (at the same time).

When I got home, I immediately logged on to my credit card company's web site to check my recent transactions. As I feared, there were a couple small charges from merchants I'd never heard of. I called the bank's fraud number and quickly learned that there was a handful of additional charges that the bank had already flagged as suspicious. The young woman on the other end of the line canceled my card right then and there.

So, props to the bank for noticing the suspicious charges – how, I don't know – and tipping me off. I still can't guess how someone got my card number. Or maybe I can and just don't like to think that our favorite waitress at the nearby bar & grill is the one who ripped me off. But I'm glad the situation was flagged before someone got a chance to take a big chunk out of my credit limit.

No matter how careful you are, there's always some scumbag who's thought of a way to get 'round you.

A matter of perspective

You know the economy is in the toilet when…

• The boss calls your team in for an emergency meeting.
• He prefaces his remarks with something like, “Well, I have some Bad News. I know this is something you're not going to want to hear, but…”
• He then proceeds to announce that there will be no raises this year.
• You're not only not surprised, but you realize that, under the circumstances, it doesn't even seem that much like Bad News.

Checking in

Wow. It's been a month to the day since my last post here. That and the fact that you haven't seen any comments from me in your blogs should give some idea how I've been spending my time. If you're not the clue getting sort, let's just say I've been working. A lot.

Before you start to suspect this is the beginning of a whinge, let me assure you that it's not. In an economy as bad as ours is (and when is that nice young Obama kid going to fix it?), just the fact that I am still working is cause for daily prayers of gratitude. Just last week, one of my favorite coworkers and a man I consider a friend was among the eight from my office who were laid off, along with another 25 from the Atlanta office.

It makes a fellow think twice about bitching about long, thankless hours and managers who can't seem to understand the limits of what can be accomplished in a day. So I think three times, keep my mouth shut, and try to smile.

I tried keep this attitude while I was spending a few hours in the waiting room of my new endocrinologist's office. After I finished filling out the usual forms and answering the same questions that I'd have to answer all over again, once I got to see the nurse (and again when I saw the doctor), I took my clipboard to the receptionist. It went something like this:

Muffy: Okay, good. Just have a seat in one of the chairs, and Miss Monique will come to take you back to one of the examination rooms. 'Kay?
Foo: Dude… did you just talk to me like a five year old?
Muffy: Like a… oh! No. No... we all call her ‘Miss Monique’. Um… did you just call me ‘dude’?

Funniest conversation I've had in weeks.

Actually, that may not be true. I finally got out for a training ride with my Wheeler Dealers buddies this past Sunday, and we had a pretty fun time replenishing with liquid carbs afterwards. It was only 25 miles, and I'm not even sure that my nutso work schedule will allow me to train up to do the MS 150 this year, but I was glad for the chance to finally get a few road miles on the books for 2009. Good times… good times.

In your face(book)

In the earlier years of internet availability, it was pretty unusual for some new time sink web toy to come along without my noticing. These days, I seem to be the last to know. Maybe it's because I'm a lot busier than I used to be, or maybe I'm just getting old, but I arrived a little late to the blog party. I only got on Twitter a month or so ago, not because I could see the point (lacking, as I do, the ability and motivation to send/receive text messages on my phone), but because I was curious.*

About a month ago, I received an invitation from my brother to join him on Facebook. I ignored it, partially because I'm already on LinkedIn and partially because Facebook doesn't give away any clues regarding what it is, unless you create an account. I thought, "Foo that noise" and never gave it another thought – at least, not until my wife informed me that all but one of my siblings and a couple cousins were on Facebook. And they were communicating.

So, too late to make a long story short, I signed up (using a false birth date, of course). In the few days I've had my account, I think I've tailored my settings to stop up the more aggregious security holes. I've posted some pictures and reconnected with a high school buddy I hadn't heard from (or, to my shame, thought of) in years. I've seen a couple more people I know come on, just within the past few days.

What I'm wondering is this: Why now? I know Facebook has been around for years, but it seems like it has really taken off in the past few weeks. Are the media talking about it because it has taken off, or has it taken off because the media are talking about it?

The first Monday of 2009

6:05am, and I'm in a little earlier than usual, thanks to a 4:57 wake-up call that came in the form of a cat throwing up a hairball all over the afghan under which Turtle was sleeping.

It's probably just as well that I got an early start, though. By the time we went to bed last night, the local news outlets were already whipping themselves into a lather about the potential for rain – and not just rain, but (oh my stars and garters!) freezing rain. My years in Texas have taught me that the more certain the weather people are that we're going to get all slick and crashy, the less likely we are to suffer any real meteorological chaos. But the majority of morning commuters don't know that, so I'll just be grateful that I didn't have to contend with their elevated anxiety on the way in this morning.

Coffee's probably ready, by now. I'm out.

“Epic Black Rock”

I don't usually pay a lot of attention to music or video mashups, but there was one that came across Blip.fm recently that blew my mind. And so I'm sharing the love.

Check out DJ Lobsterdust's “Epic Black Rock”, a slick Frankenstein's monster of a rock juggernaut made up from Faith No More's “Epic”, AC/DC's “Back In Black”, and Queen's “We Will Rock You”.

There's a special place in hell

Thieves Target Salvation Army, Three Other Dallas Charities

Police are looking for thieves who broke into several Dallas charities over the holiday weekend, including the state headquarters of the Salvation Army on Harry Hines. Detectives do not believe the burglaries were committed by the same people.
Link

Not committed by the same people? Oh, well… that's not so bad, then.

Fred Thompson explains all

Oh. That seems straightforward enough.

(A tip of the propeller beanie to my lovely bride, who sent me the link to this video.)

Merry Christmas!

Ah… another glorious 70-something-degrees Christmas day in North Texas! Here, at the Turtle 'n' Foo house, we'd like to extend to all of you our best wishes for an enjoyable and blessed Christmas day.

Gone in 60 seconds

In a sweetly magnanimous holiday gesture toward my friends and/or coworkers, Turtle sent goodies to work with me today. She lined an 11"x14" cake pan with festive tissue paper and packed it with an assortment of snickerdoodles, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, peppermint fudge, cranberry bread, and (the infamous) cinnamon popcorn. She gave me clear instructions regarding the manner in which these treats were to be distributed, noting that there wasn't enough for everyone.

So I rolled in at 6:20 and promptly fired off an email to any and every one at this place with whom I've ever had a remotely agreeable conversation, inviting them to come and avail themselves of my wife's largesse. Then, I sat back and waited to greet my holiday visitors.

By 10:00, only a handful of people had partaken – mostly after I'd corralled them in the halls – and each of them made a show of daintily picking out a single cookie or half a slice of cranberry bread. Finally, fearing that I might have to take the lot home with me, I placed the pan in the kitchen area for the general populace. I stopped at the men's room, after which I passed by the kitchen on the way back to my cubicle.

Half the pan had been emptied. One startled coworker was standing over the pan, cheeks full, with an expression on his face that I haven't seen since the time I was camping caught a family of raccoons raiding my cooler. He was one of the guys who had been on my original list of invitees.

Apparently, Christmas goodies are much more attractive when they can be eaten anonymously.

Blip!

A fellow blogger (who will remain unnamed only because I'm not sure she'd want the publicity) recently turned me on to new(?) web site called Blip.fm. Think of it as Twitter, but with music as the focus and cross-pollinated with Google.

I've always had eclectic musical tastes and used to think that disc jockeys had the absolute best job in the world. At least, until I came to realize that most disc jockeys don't get to play what they like. Most have to play the songs that their program managers have established – using complex statistical analysis of demographic surveys – are least likely to cause the most listeners to tune to a different station before the commercial break.

Blip.fm is a great way for wanna-bes like me to inflict our musical tastes on a lot of other Blippers who are doing the same. It's also a great way to sample a lot of different music by bands I've never heard of and then download the ones I really like from Amazon or iTunes.

Music hasn't been quite this fun since the mid-'90s, when I was buying half a dozen CDs a week and cranking out mix cassettes for my buddies and me.

Weekend update

Yesterday, Turtle went on a holiday baking spree, and the house smells like cookies and fudge and popcorn drizzled with melted “red hots” (cinnamon candy).

Turtle: I hope I didn't scald myself. I spilled molten red hots all over the leg of my jeans.
Foo: You okay?
Turtle: I… yeah. I think so.
Foo: Then can I start calling you “sugar britches”?
Turtle: That depends on how you'd feel about living with a permanent limp.

All of this was kind of the result of an invitation to a party. One of our RBENT friends has just celebrated his first year surviving lung cancer, and the gang planned to converge on his house to help him mark the date. Some yummy Tex-Mex, a little wine, and a lot of laughs later, I felt like we'd impressed on him how glad we all are that he's winning the battle. Live Strong, Bud!

This morning, we slept in. Around 8:30 I put on a pot of coffee and set about whipping up some bacon and eggs. Turtle set about trying to help, and we were quickly in one another's way. I found myself channeling my dad.

“Look,” he'd say in situations when Mom or we kids were too much under foot. “Why don't you just go sit down someplace?”

I realized immediately what I'd said. I waited, thinking maybe Turtle hadn't been listening. She started laughing, and I knew I was busted.

Good thing my wife has a sense of humor.

The Thyroid Diaries: Part 9 of 9

17 May, 2002

Good news today. I had my full-body scan, and the verdict came back alles klar ('all clear'). What a enormous load off my mind and a relief for all those who care about me and have been praying for just such a result.

Of course, I had to get the information from one of the other doctors. Mine was 'out of town', which was just as well, as far as I'm concerned. God help him to see more clearly, not only for the collective sake of his patients, but also for his own. I get the distinct impression from my HR person and the insurance adjuster she's been working with through all this that the doctor's refusal to cooperate puts his status in the Private Health Care System (the PPO network my employer uses) in question. I think that the only reason some sort of protest hasn't already been filed is that it would cause me more problems, and that the moment I shift to a different doctor, this guy's got some 'splainin' to do.

Today

It's been over seven years since my initial diagnosis. Since then, I've been through three endocrinologists (due to changes in my employers' insurance plans) and three full-body scans. I've gotten married, built a new home, and moved to another town. The company I've worked for since 1990 has been been acquired twice. Since my surgery and treatment I've taken up cycling, have owned four different bicycles, and have ridden one of them in two MS 150s.

I'm still cancer free, by God's grace, and everyone except the life insurance underwriters consider me cured.

The Thyroid Diaries: Part 8 of 9

2 October, 2001

Went back for another follow-up today, and the doctor says he thinks everything is right on track. I told him that I thought my dosage is still too low, and he said that we'd just have to wait for the blood tests to come back on that.

(Note: A week and a half later, I got a copy of the test results in the mail, along with a new prescription for a higher dosage.)

24 March, 2002

I'm getting a real education in just how cynical and messed up our health care system is. In February, I was supposed to have my first full-body scan since the one in August of last year, to see whether or not the post-surgery dose of radiation had been effective in killing off the cancerous lymph nodes that the last scan revealed. The endocrinologist enthused about some new synthetic hormone called Thyrogen, which he would administer in preparation for the scan, so that I wouldn't have to go off my Synthroid. Sounded great! So, he said, they'd submit the charges for this expensive medicine to my insurance beforehand, to verify that they'd cover it, before ordering the stuff.

The first of March rolled around, and I began to wonder when the doctor's office was going to call and tell me when to come in. I called and was informed that the insurance company hadn't gotten back to them about the Thyrogen, but when I checked with our human resources person about this, she found out from the insurance company that they had a record of not only having responded, but having approved the charges. After a lot of back-and-forth, during which the insurance company adjuster went so far as to guarantee, in writing, payment of the charges within 48 hours of their submission, the doctor finally informed me that the insurance company wouldn't cooperate. It was, according to him, "office policy" to require up-front payment from the insurance company for the Thyrogen, and his hands were tied.

"I see," I told him. "Correct me if I'm mistaken, but you're the lead partner in your practice, and it's you who make office policy. Right?"

"Well, I..."

So much for health care. It's all about the bottom line, these days.

Anyway, my bottom line is that I'm going off my meds for 6 weeks. I take Cytomel for 4 weeks, and then it's cold turkey for another two. When the nurse called to schedule my appointments for taking the tracer and getting the scan done, she commented, "I see you've decided to do this the hard way instead of taking the Thyrogen."

Seethe.

Next »

The Thyroid Diaries: Part 7 of 9

1 August, 2001

I had my appointment with the endocrinologist this morning. No poking or prodding or bleeding, this time around, but I got some answers about where we go from here.

He seems pleased with my recovery to date and confirms that I'll be off my hormone pills until August 13. At that time, I'll go to his office and take my "magic bullet", which is how he refers to the I 131 treatment. No goop to swallow; no hospital stay. Apparently, they only use the high doses of radiation that require hospital isolation in cases where the cancer has spread to a larger degree. Since papillary thyroid cancer spreads to the lymph nodes, when it spreads (as opposed to spreading in the bloodstream), and since the surgeon found only one positive cancerous node, they're going with a "therapeutic" dose (i.e.,the magic bullet).

For the most part, I'm not having to change my lifestyle or diet, aside from staying off my thyroid meds. I don't even have to change my diet, though he advised to keep a tight rein on salt intake and to stay away from fast food burger places. For some unknown reason, he says, they have a lot of iodine in their food. Anyway, I take my pill and then go back to be scanned a few days later, on Friday. Once that's out of the way, I'll go on my long-term thyroid medicine, and the next event will be another tracer scan at about 6 months.

He mentioned some other tests and things involving something-globulin and synthetic THS to avoid having to come off the meds for subsequent tests, but it's all a lot ot absorb at once, so I'll just take it as it comes.

He also had some enlightening things to say in response to my question about the NDA process that Synthroid is going through. I asked because this is a common thyroid hormone and the one that I probably would have been prescribed, but after my question, he seemed to think that he might put me on something else, just in case, to avoid any chance of having to re-balance my dosages, in the unlikely event of supply shortages.

14 August, 2001

I went in for my radiation pill yesterday. As predicted, it was pretty much of a no-brainer: I sat around for about half an hour before taking a white, half-inch-long capsule with a shot glass of water. The nurse took a vial of blood, and I was out the door.

Other things I learned:

• My full body scan is this coming Friday, at 1:30.
• Barring that the scan reveals thyroid tissue or cancer tissue activity, I'll be allowed to go back on my medication on Friday, after the scan. It sounds like I'll initially take the five or so Cytomel (short-term) tablets I have left from the post-op phase, to be followed by starting on my long-term Synthroid or whichever alternate brand name is prescribed.
• The nurse told me that my dosage would be set a bit too high, at first, by design. This is fine by me, since I had joked about asking the doctor to do this so I could drop five or ten pounds that I've been wanting to lose. Then, I suppose, my dosage will be adjusted down, over time, until it is balanced to the doctor's satisfaction.

How do I feel? Draggy. I feel like I have small weights strapped to my arms and legs, and I tend to stare into space a lot--but then, the staring into space isn't really a change from the last year or so. It really makes me wonder just how long I've been like this and had simply adapted to it. I'm also somewhat depressed (also not unusual), so [Turtle] and I try to steer away from talking about important but frustrating topics like my job hunt and our struggle to be together. Once I'm on the meds, I'll be able to talk about these things without spiraling into insane, defeatist rants... but not now.

17 August, 2001

I went in on August 17 to have my full-body scan. There was no additional cancer found in my chest or lower abdomen, which is good, but there were two new (or previously-undiscovered) cancerous lymph nodes that showed up. They were glowing brightly with radiation, however, and the doctor says he expects to see no activity there when I have my next scan in 6 months.

In the mean time, I'm on my long-term thyroid medication now, and I have a follow-up office visit in October. I suppose that will probably be just to draw blood and check to see that my medication is at the right dosage. Basically, it's back to business as usual, which means turning my attention back to either finding me a job in St. Louis or finding [Turtle] one in Dallas so we can get this show on the road and be together. =)

Next »

The Thyroid Diaries: Part 6 of 9

25 July, 2001

Went to see the doctor (surgeon) today. More blood work to check my calcium and phosphorus levels. There's not really anything new to report about my condition, except that the doctor is happy with my healing and has set his assistants to working out the next steps with the endocrinologist. So far, I've had a call back saying that the endocrinologist's office is saying I'll probably have to be off of my thyroid hormones for two weeks in preparation for the I-131 treatment. That's a week longer than I'd been led to believe, to this point, and although I understand why it might be handled this way, if half of what I've heard about being off my thyroid meds (that I'll be totally exhausted feel like gravity has doubled) is true, it's going to be a pretty miserable week and a half. And that's not even counting the two to four days following the radiation treatment, during which I'll almost certainly be off the meds, as well.

Most of the discussion to this point had me believing that the actual radiation treatment wouldn't be a big deal, but the surgeon says that this kind of depends on what the endocrinologist wants to do. Depending on the dosage of radiation I'm given, I may have to go back in to the hospital so that they can keep me isolated until I'm no longer "hot".

Let's see... exhausted, nauseated, and stuck away in the hospital isolation ward. Sounds like a blast, but I guess I won't really know exactly what's happening until I talk to the endocrinologist.

Said doctor being, of course, out of town at another conference.

26 July, 2001

Got some more news following up from yesterday's visit with the surgeon. My calcium levels look good, so I'm now off one of my medications (the one that helps me to absorb calcium better). I go back for another blood test on next Monday (July 30), and then I think that's probably the last I'll see of the surgeon.

I also received a call from the nurse at the endocrinologist's office, and she told me to stop taking my Cytomel (the thyroid meds) on Sunday, July 29. Then, on August 1, I have an appointment with the endocrinologist. I would imagine he'll tell me then what the next few weeks will hold for me, but if I'm to stop the Cytomel this Sunday, I would expect the radioactive iodine treatment to follow sometime between August 6-13. I should know more after my appointment on August 1.

Next »