cancer update
Jun. 16th, 2009 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sereneWhen I was composing my posts on LJ, I typically used a filter to talk about my health stuff, but I'm trying to make nearly 100% of my posts on DW public (it's a personal thing), so I'll use a cut instead. It will NOT hurt my feelings if you skip these, I promise.
The short version is I'm okay, but disappointed.
[A little bit of medical knowledge that will help with understanding my visit to the endo* today: Normal TSH** range in a person with a properly functioning thyroid is 1 to 5 (I forget what the units are). The target range for thyroid cancer patients is one-tenth that, or 0.1 to 0.5.]
I went to my endo today for a follow-up (I had labs drawn last month) and to ask her about the symptoms I've been having. They're classic suppression symptoms, so I just assumed they were normal. And they would be.
But.
I'm not suppressed. My TSH at my last draw was 2.8, far, far away from the suppression goal of .1 to .5. It's suprising (and worrying -- she used the word "worry" far too many times for my mental wellbeing) to her that I'm even having the symptoms at this level.
Also, there are some antibodies in my system that are messing up their ability to track the presence (or, one hopes, absence) of thyroid cells in my body, which means it's not as easy to tell if I still have cancer in there.
We laughed a little at the fact that my body doesn't seem to know how to be typical where thyroid stuff is concerned. When I had thyroid cancer, my thyroid levels were perfectly normal (which actually delayed my diagnosis for several years); now that I have no thyroid and have zapped what remained with radiation, my body's refusing to cooperate by having a typical response to the treatment.
The thing that makes Dr. Peng the coolest, though, is that her reaction to "Oh, Serene has atypical stuff going on" is "...so we're going to do some workarounds in the testing and treatment plan, so that she can get the best care for the way her body works." She's going to keep working on suppression, and keep a close eye on my symptoms so that my suppressive doses don't do some other kind of harm. She's going to wait and see if the antibodies clear my system, and if not, she'll do some other tests to track the thyroid function, etc. And if necessary, we'll do another round of the dreaded radioactive iodine. None of which was fun to hear, but all of which meshed really well with the research I've done, and with what other people on my thyca*** listserv say is Best Practices for this sort of thing.
If you ever need an endo in the Kaiser system, I highly recommend Dr. Susan Peng.
* Endocrinologist, the doctor who monitors my thyroid health
** Thyroid Stimulating Hormone, a hormone put out by the pituitary gland when thyroxine (thyroid hormone) levels drop; the higher this number is, the more likely it is that any thyroid tissue that might remain in my body will get to work making too many cells, i.e. regrowing thyroid cancer in my body.
*** Thyroid Cancer survivor resource, http://www.thyca.org
The short version is I'm okay, but disappointed.
[A little bit of medical knowledge that will help with understanding my visit to the endo* today: Normal TSH** range in a person with a properly functioning thyroid is 1 to 5 (I forget what the units are). The target range for thyroid cancer patients is one-tenth that, or 0.1 to 0.5.]
I went to my endo today for a follow-up (I had labs drawn last month) and to ask her about the symptoms I've been having. They're classic suppression symptoms, so I just assumed they were normal. And they would be.
But.
I'm not suppressed. My TSH at my last draw was 2.8, far, far away from the suppression goal of .1 to .5. It's suprising (and worrying -- she used the word "worry" far too many times for my mental wellbeing) to her that I'm even having the symptoms at this level.
Also, there are some antibodies in my system that are messing up their ability to track the presence (or, one hopes, absence) of thyroid cells in my body, which means it's not as easy to tell if I still have cancer in there.
We laughed a little at the fact that my body doesn't seem to know how to be typical where thyroid stuff is concerned. When I had thyroid cancer, my thyroid levels were perfectly normal (which actually delayed my diagnosis for several years); now that I have no thyroid and have zapped what remained with radiation, my body's refusing to cooperate by having a typical response to the treatment.
The thing that makes Dr. Peng the coolest, though, is that her reaction to "Oh, Serene has atypical stuff going on" is "...so we're going to do some workarounds in the testing and treatment plan, so that she can get the best care for the way her body works." She's going to keep working on suppression, and keep a close eye on my symptoms so that my suppressive doses don't do some other kind of harm. She's going to wait and see if the antibodies clear my system, and if not, she'll do some other tests to track the thyroid function, etc. And if necessary, we'll do another round of the dreaded radioactive iodine. None of which was fun to hear, but all of which meshed really well with the research I've done, and with what other people on my thyca*** listserv say is Best Practices for this sort of thing.
If you ever need an endo in the Kaiser system, I highly recommend Dr. Susan Peng.
* Endocrinologist, the doctor who monitors my thyroid health
** Thyroid Stimulating Hormone, a hormone put out by the pituitary gland when thyroxine (thyroid hormone) levels drop; the higher this number is, the more likely it is that any thyroid tissue that might remain in my body will get to work making too many cells, i.e. regrowing thyroid cancer in my body.
*** Thyroid Cancer survivor resource, http://www.thyca.org
no subject
Date: 2009-06-17 03:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-17 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-17 04:15 am (UTC)Re: cancer update
Date: 2009-06-17 05:28 am (UTC)*hug*. i hope it all clears itself up soon.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-17 07:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-17 07:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-17 08:50 am (UTC)Hellz, a good Doctor is someone to treasure! I'm glad you seem to have a member of the A-Team in your corner.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-17 11:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-17 12:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-17 02:39 pm (UTC)