quarantine

I'm sitting in my room on quarantine so I thought it would be a good time to blog.  I have been preparing for my radiation treatment(I-131) to try and kill any  thyroid cells left in me that might be cancer or turn into them in the future.  By doing so I had to be on a special diet for 12 days that consist of low iodine.  Which means no dairy, seafood, or salt! Because so many prepared foods have salt or eggs or dairy in them I had to make all my own food with out iodine (or red dye #3).  I did make some different homemade breads but I could only have 4 servings of grain and 1 of meat a day.  I ate a lot of oatmeal with fruit, applesauce, and unsalted nuts and vegetable soup.  Today I could began eating normal again.  I couldn't wait and was thinking of all the things I would eat today like chocolate, cheese, ice cream, but unfortunately I don't feel well at all! I barley got out of bed today.  On a positive note (by prepping for this) I found out the thyroid cells were not in my lungs! Besides eating this way I had to get some blood test, shots, sample pills, and a body scan.  The body scan shows any hot spots where cells are.  I was so excited to find out none are in my lungs!  (I will have to get a ct scan again in a few months to try to see what is in there that showed up on the ct scan.  Dr. thinks it is nothing big maybe scar tissue or something.) Unfortunately the scan showed more tissue (suspected benign) then they expected though so I had to get the extra strong does of I-131 to kill it off.  This means I have to be quarantined longer and more possible side effects.  I took the does yesterday and was feeling fine until about 5:30 then started to feel sick.  I have felt like I have a cold and the flu at the same time! I have to stay 6 feet away from anyone until Sunday then it tapers off.  I go back on Tuesday morning for another body scan and then I see my Dr. the next Monday for the follow up plan.  I'm hoping I will be done with all this and just have routine blood test from now on! I can't go back to work until April 1st and the weather looks like it is going to be great here next week! I'm hoping to get lots of walking in the sunshine in!

health update.

I don't have a lot of news but I just thought I would fill you in on what I do know.  A few weeks ago I got a ct scan done.  The next day my nurse called me to say there was some spots they want to re check in a few months.  I got a copy of the report and was really worried the cancer was already in my lungs.  A week went by and my nurse called again, I told her I was concerned and she asked if I wanted to talk to the doctor about them.  I went in the next day and he told me he doesn't think that the spots are thyroid cancer or any other cancer. Some of them are common but one of them is not as common so they want to re-check it in June for more information.  He suspects that its residual tissue from a childhood illness.  Maybe from when I had pneumonia when I was young.  However if it is thyroid related I will know for sure next Wednesday when I get a body scan.  I have already officially started my ri-131 treatment processes.  It's about 3 weeks long. Today was the first day on my eating plan.  It's a low iodine diet for 12 days consisting of mostly fruits and veggies.  Then I will have to have 2 blood tests, 2 hormone injections, 2 body scans, and radiation.  I will also find out how much radiation they will give me based on that scan next week.  After the radiation I will be quarantined for a little while then get another body scan. The radiation shouldn't make me sick or lose my hair.  The most common side effects are a sore throat, trouble with saliva glands and food tasting different.  I have a follow up on April 4th with the doctor to go over the future plan.  Hopefully after this treatment I will be cancer free (if I'm not already) but will have to do check up's about every 6 months for a while.  My incision is healing nicely it's barely noticeable already. 

Kitchen up-date

No it's not finished yet...I seams like once the major stuff is up and running the small stuff takes forever to wrap up!  David has been doing all the work himself and he has been working a lot of weekends at work too so the kitchen is slow going.  I really love the way it is looking though!  Here are a few before, during and now pictures.

we can't find the last handle
 

 The sink side of the kitchen.  I tried to group the pictures to the same area.  Here's the stove side of the room.

No back splash yet

Here's another sink view but with the dishwasher and refrigerator. We still want a new curtain. I didn't "stage" any of these pictures so they have the way we really live in them stuff on the cupboard, fridge and all.

you can see here the top cupboards aren't done yet

I love the way the counter top turned out.  I thought it was cool how we got to pick the piece of garnet out then they came over and made the shape we wanted from wood.  After that we got to lay out how the pieces went together. 

I'm not sure if you can tell but this next picture is one of the dents from the dryer installation I blogged about before. (we didn't do it)

We did change the doors to white and the trim but I don't think we have any pictures where you can see it. Eventually we will get new doors and trim in the rest of the house too. Here's our back splash idea unless we find something we like more before we do it.

We did put the flooring in the hall and living room area to I have a picture of the living room to if I didn't already post it.

We still have to do the back splash, trim, and top cupboards.  I can't wait for it to be all finished so we can move onto the next project.