May 30, 2004
Okay, it just occurred to me that at some point in the past six months, I have become a prime candidate for an appearance on Style Court, or How Do I Look?, or What Not to Wear. You know, one of those fashion shows where they unmercifully mock you, your hair, your shoes, and every article of clothing that you own and then give you a makeover.
Yesterday afternoon, I left the house in the only pair of jeans that still fit me, a t-shirt emblazoned with “Girl Scout Dropout” (which had been a favorite but now is a little worse for wear), dirty white fake Keds, and my brother's KU baseball hat. No make up and hair barely combed. And I'd like to say that this was just as “running out to buy milk” outfit, but while it was today, I'm ashamed to say that more and more of these kinds of outfits have crept into my wardrobe rotation.
What the hell? Did I hit 33 and just give up?
Anyway, despite my growing fashion dilemma, I do get a pass for this week at least. Considering I'm radioactive.
Yup, you heard right. I'm radioactive. And no, it didn't happen in any sort of cool lab accident involving gamma rays or radioactive insects imparting their supernatural bug powers to me. It also did not involve a nuclear power plant, a decontamination shower, and Cher. Unfortunately.
See, back in 2000, Teddy and I were sitting on the couch in my mother's house. It was actually during the Kate and Holden Breakup Week of Doom, but that, for once, has nothing to do with the story, so let's press on. Anyway, I stretched and leaned my head back and Teddy said, “Katie, do you know you have a lump on your throat?”
I didn't know, and that observation kicked off months of obsessive nagging from my mother, trying to get me to see a doctor. At the time, I didn't have health insurance, so I put her off as long as I could. Besides, I was going through a “It's not cancer as long as the doctor doesn't say it's cancer” thing. I even wrote a short story about it. But, finally, I got health insurance while I was in grad school (Eternal thanks to Bill Clinton's administration) and my frustration with my mother's nagging began to outweigh my fear of having cancer, so I made an appointment with a doctor to have the lump checked out.
And that was the start of a four-year long journey that ends, this week, with me being radioactive.
The first doctor I saw was this ancient guy with an office on Rittenhouse Square who told me the lump was just a goiter and that young women were prone to goiters but most got “matching” goiters on both sides of their thyroid, making them hard to notice, but since mine was only on one side, it stood out. He sent me for tests, and looked them over, and said they confirmed that I had a goiter. He said he could treat it, but that the treatment was probably worse than having the goiter, so I should just leave it.
Well, his diagnosis didn't sit quite well with me, and it certainly didn't sit well with my mother. You know, my mother with the medical degree that she apparently never told any of us about.
But, anyway, since I wasn't convinced that Dr. Older Than the Hills wasn't senile or just diagnosing me according to 1958'medical standards, I made an appointment with an endocrinologist at Hahnemann Hospital.
Now, since Hahnemann is a pretty major player on the Philadelphia medical scene and is connected with Drexel University, I figured I'd get a more accurate diagnosis. Um, yeah, that happened.
I went, they took blood, ran tests, the tests came back showing that my thyroid levels were a little out of whack. I tried to tell them that I was constantly tired and that I can gain ridiculous amounts of weight in very short amounts of time (I'm talking five pounds in a night if I overeat at one meal.) I asked if that kind of stuff could be caused by a crazy thyroid. They brushed me off and told that what I had wasn't a thyroid problem, what I had was a cyst.
At the time, it made sense. Cysts can be a hereditary condition and my father is horrifically prone to them. As is my brother. And I've had subcutaneous, benign cysts on my wrists. So I figured this lump on my neck was just another manifestation of my father's warped genetic generosity, along with my bushy eyebrows and foot problems.
So, Hahnemann diagnosed a cyst and sent me for a needle aspiration (biopsy) just to make sure it wasn't cancerous. I went in and they stuck a GIANT needle into my neck and drew out some greenish liquid and tested it and told me it was benign. Then, the tech told me that he would drain the cyst, but that I should keep in mind that it had every possibility of coming back, since cysts are often recurring things. But that I shouldn't worry because it was benign so the problem was more cosmetic than medical.
He drained it. It made me so frigging sick, I thought I was going to die. So then he yelled at me for not having eaten anything before I came. Well, gee, nobody told me I could eat. And every time I have ever had a medical procedure that involved something even remotely like someone sticking a giant needle into some part of my body, I've been told NOT to eat anything before coming in for the procedure. So yeah, there should have been no reason for me to assume it was better not to eat anything before having another giant needle stuck into my body.
Oh, and wouldn't you know that the tech then made a comment like, “Why the hell does everyone assume they shouldn't eat anything before coming in?” So obviously, I wasn't the only one who didn't eat, not by a long shot.
Anyway, he drained the cyst and sent me home. Over the next year, the cyst came back. But since the crack team at Hahnemann swore up and down it was harmless and just a cosmetic problem and my health insurance wouldn't cover a cosmetic problem, I didn't do anything about it.
Besides, I had felt pretty much the same way (you know that sluggish/gain weight from just looking at food thing) since BEFORE I had noticed the cyst, so I figured it was just how I was, not cyst-related.
So I went along with this regrown lump on my neck for another two years, until October of last year, when I was suddenly and constantly covered in hives.
This time around, I went to the University of Pennsylvania's medical system. The allergist at PENN sent me for tests, which showed that I was slightly hyperthyroid, and so he felt that the hives were an autoimmune reaction to the elevated thyroid levels. So he referred me to a PENN endocrinologist. (And y'all know about that – the whole six-month waiting list for an appointment until my throat swelled closed, which bumped me up a whole month.)
So I finally saw the endocrinologist. Who sent me for more tests, an ultrasound, and a nuclear thyroid scan. The tests came back as consistently hyperthyroid and the ultrasound and scan showed that I had a free-floating, segmented cyst comprised of a fluid component and a solid component. It's not cancerous because the cyst is producing thyroid hormone and a cancerous cyst would not be functioning in even a semi-normal way.
Basically, the situation is this: this cyst is producing an inordinate amount of thyroid hormone, causing me to be hyperthyroid, and also causing my thyroid to shut down. So because all of the thyroid hormone is being produced by something other than my thyroid, my body is recognizing it as an abnormality and the hives are an autoimmune reaction to this abnormality.
Meanwhile, all that is just fine and dandy, but my big question is HOW IN HELL CAN I BE HYPERTHYROID?!
I mean, hyperthyroidism is supposed to make you feel wired, anxious, fidgety, not TIRED ALL THE TIME AND SLUGGISH. It's supposed to SPEED up your metabolism, which I would think would make me STICK THIN not TWENTY POUNDS OVERWEIGHT. What the fuck?
I basically said as much to my endocrinologist. Well, you know, without the whole “What the fuck?” part. And she explained to me that in some people hyperthyroidism presents as HYPOthyroidism, which is the whole sluggish, tired, weight-gaining crap.
Of course, I am one of those people. Just once in my life, I would like a freaking medical condition that presents like a textbook example, not as some wacko, one in a million type ordeal. Sheesh.
Anyway, the good news is that I'm eminently treatable. In fact, my doc says that I am one of the few people with a thyroid condition who can be completely cured. Most people who are hyperthyroid often become hypothyroid after undergoing treatment and then have to spend the rest of their lives regulating their thyroid levels with medication. And that's because in most cases the hyperthyroidism is a function of their actual thyroid. But, in my case, since the hyperthyroidism is being caused by the cyst and not my thyroid, I just need to get rid of the cyst and my thyroid should then “wake up” and begin functioning normally.
And that's where the radioactivity comes in, kids. The way to get rid of the cyst is to give me a dose of Radioactive Iodine. Since iodine is only absorbed by the functioning part of the thyroid, the RI will go directly to my cyst (which is the only functioning part of my thyroid right now) and will melt the solid component of the cyst and hopefully, then the fluid component will just be reabsorbed into my body. (If it doesn't reabsorb, it'll have to be drained again, but that's not such a bad thing, considering then it will be gone, baby, gone.)
So, last week, I got my dose of Radioactive Iodine. The bad thing about RI is that it makes a girl, well, radioactive. Go figure. But that means I've had to be in quarantine since last Tuesday. I can't sleep in the same bed as Holden for a week. I have to eat off disposable plates, use disposable utensils. I can't pick up the cats. I can't be around pregnant women or small children for extended periods of time (hence the reason that I am not at the lovely Melissa's today.) I can't hug Holden or kiss him or anything like that. I have to keep my underwear separate from the rest of the laundry. I can't be in direct contact with anyone for more than half an hour. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Blah, indeed. I've been trapped in this stupid house since Tuesday. And I will be trapped in here for the rest of today and tomorrow and then on Tuesday, I will at least be able to go back to work, but I have to keep my office door shut and stay sequestered. Life returns to normal on Wednesday, but I'm afraid I may lose my mind before then.
I can't really cook anything because I shouldn't use the pots and pans, and Holden is working nights now, so I've been existing on Bagel Bites, muffins, and corned beef hash sandwiches. I am so desperate for an actual dinner, I honestly don't know what I would do for some breaded chicken, mashed potatoes, and a vegetable. I think I might commit murder. I watch the Food Network and cry.
I really shouldn't talk on the phone because the radioactivity is communicated through bodily fluid and the phone needs to be close to my mouth. I have had no physical contact with either human or feline for four and a half days and won't have any for another two.
I have watched the entire rotation of TV shows on both the Food Network and the Style Network, and now I am vacillating violently between wanting to make Chicken Marsala and wanting to completely overhaul my wardrobe. But I can't do either because I can't cook because I am radioactive, and I can't buy clothes, not because I am radioactive, but because I am poor.
I've watched the entire first and second seasons of Homicide and now I am annoyed because I don't have Season 3. I can't sleep on this stupid couch and I think one of the side effects of Radioactive Iodine is nightmares because I have dreamt about grisly murders and monsters and other horrible things for four nights now. Holden tries to tell me it's because I've been watching Homicide, but I doubt it, because watching Frank Pembleton and John Munch and the rest of the squad have never given me nightmares before.
I am so cabin-fevered, I actually created mail merges for sending out another round of short stories.
And, to top it off, the RI started adversely affecting me on Friday because it's that time of the month, and any kind of physical stress, even normal stress, on the body can cause your body to react badly to the RI. So I've also been nauseous, even more tired, and achy.
Oh, and I leave the house and see actual sunlight so infrequently, I am beginning to resemble a vampire.
Fun.
Two and a half more days. Just two and a half more days.
7 Deadly Sins and Other, Less Fatal Diversions
Pride:
Envy:
Wrath:
Sloth:
Avarice:
Gluttony:
Lust:
Book:
Tune:
Well I'm not uptight, not unattractive.
Quest for Publication:
I actually remembered how to do a mail merge.
People who are not radioactive.
I'm not even going to get into what happened on Tuesday and why I didn't get my dose of iodine until Wednesday. Suffice to say, sometimes doctors are assholes.
I haven't been very far from this couch for four and a half days.
A lead-lined radiation suit would be kind of nice right now. I could sleep in my bed and cook dinner and hold my cats.
Bagel Bites, hash, muffins, salt and vinegar potato chips.
Watching so much Homicide, a girl can't help but fall in love again with the Belz.
Who's Who in Hell by Richard Chalmers. Still. Because, even though I am basically stuck in this house and on this couch, I haven't done any reading.
The Firm, Radioactive
Turn me on tonight, I'm radioactive. Radioactive.
Well, it's not a fight, and I'm not your captive.
Turn me loose tonight - I'm radioactive, radioactive
Task at Hand:
Not a damn thing because I can't do anything.
Well, the upside of being radioactive and quarantined is that I did get 50 more submissions ready to go out. They'll be hitting the mail next Wednesday.
Total Submissions: 52
Rejections: 29
Acceptances: 1
Withdrawals: 7