Yesterday for breakfast I ate 5 milliCuries of radioactive iodine-131. It was quite the experience. This is the "tracer dose" I am given to check for thyroid cancer metastases. I get the whole body scan tomorrow morning. So, this dose is "low" right? Well, let me say I continue to be amazed at the doses of radioactivity that are handed out for this treatment. To give you some idea, the biotech company I work for has a license to use radioactive iodine in our experiments, and our possession limit is 0.5 milliCuries. So, the minute I stepped into work yesterday, we were ten fold over our maximum limit. It all just seems so silly when I see how much time, effort, and money goes into the licensure, inspection, safety badging, tracking, and waste disposal of the radioisotopes we use, when I can go take a 5mCi pill, and then take a leak and whiz out a few milliCuries at a time. Craziness, and this is just the small dose.
We did have some fun with it at work though. My buddy Jon made a video of me walking up to a geiger counter, which sent it from a soft "tick...tick" to screaming. I had the video on FaceBook for awhile, but then I got some weird comments about how I looked like I was humping the counter when I tried to get my bladder and intestines close to the meter, so I took it down. Also, to see how hot my saliva was, I spit in a paper towel and we checked in on the geiger. It was hotter than all the radioactive waste we had on site. So, what to do with it?? We can't put it in the radioactive waste bin, because everything has to be logged in, and we're not even supposed to have that much! So, we wrapped it in more paper towels and threw it in the trash. To be on the safe side, my colleagues designated me my very own stall (see picture) for this week and next.
Not much else to report. I'm still generally tired, but I have good days and bad days with the energy. Today was a 50/50 day. Yesterday I was great, but all last weekend was terrible. Soon enough, say mid week next week I can go on Synthroid and start feeling better. Sometime next week will be my big dose of radio-iodine. Then I'll have 2 or 3 days confined to my bedroom. Becca and I have planned a big celebratory dinner out when I get out of confinement next week. I plan on eating tons of cheese, bread, chocolate, and ice cream!! No more low iodine! I know Bec's looking forward to cooking normally again. And not eating out for 4 weeks has to be some kind of record for me.
That's all for now, and stay out of my stall...unless you want a radioactive butt.
3 comments:
Sounds like you work with a great group of people. Best of luck with the rest of treatment and confinement. A celebration with tons of ice cream, cheese and chocolate is definitely in order once it is done.
Bob showed us the video at Lab Meeting yesterday -- wild stuff.
Yea,
For the record, no one mentioned the suggestive manner which you were positioning your bladder until someone (not to be named at the moment) was giggling at it. So does this high dose of radiation not affect the tissues in your body which come in contact with it? It only affects any left over thyroid tissue which absorbs the iodine? Crazy!
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