another newby

We are always sorry to see someone need to join, but it's good that you found us. It is wonderful to hear you have a positive attitude, and this will help alot as you move through the next month or so.

We often hear people call this the 'good' cancer, but truly - there is no such thing as a 'good' cancer, Sheri. That is like saying 'would you rather be run over by a train, or a bus?' Either way, you are still run over...

This cancer is normally quite treatable, providing it will uptake the radioactive iodine treatments, with thorough surgeries, etc, in the early stages - but it can be very serious if left untreated, or if allowed to reoccur or non-iodine avid. Unlike some types of cancers that are considered 'cured', our follow up is required annually, for the rest of our lives. It isn't an easy road, and we do sometimes get quite frustrated by people thinking this road is easy... they are wrong about that.

You may also want to join this group - it's also free, you just need to register with yahoo. But do choose the 'no email' option, and read the posts at the webpage instead - there are sometimes a few hundred messages a day there, so your email box could be overwhelmed!:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Thyca/

Many of our members at the above group were also diagnosed with lung mets - and they have successfully gotten rid of them, with radioactive iodine treatments. Sometimes it may take a few treatments to do this, but it does work for most, so please don't worry too much yet about this. If you do a similar post on the Thyca group, I'm sure Marilyn will tell you all about her successful treatments.

Have you started the Low Iodine Diet? This is something that you can do to help yourself - we normally do this for 14 days prior to swallowing our treatment (or scan) dose, and for about 24-48 hours afterwards. It helps our bodies to 'soak up' as much of the treatment as possible. Here is some info on this, and a free cookbook, too:
http://www.thyca.org/ThyCaCookbook.pdf

Or, you may want to purchase this one - it is new on the market, and really helpful for us:
http://www.yourhealthpress.com/book_lidcookbook.html

Your mind and body are 'out of wack', and it will become even moreso in the next few weeks, and for a few weeks after your treatment.

Thyroid hormones control the 'speed' of our metabolism - our heart rate, speed of thinking, etc - so when we are off hormones preparing for scans or treatments, we are severely impaired. If your doctor hasn't mentioned it, you should not be driving - at all - once you stop taking your cytomel, and for at least 2 weeks after your radioactive iodine treatment. This is really important, because you truly are 'impaired' during this time.

The best advice I got when I was early in treatment was to try to take this disease one step at a time, one treatment at a time, and one day at a time... and it really helps. If we try to think far into the future, and worry about persistent or recurrent disease, we are wasting today... and the one thing a cancer diagnosis does is to teach us how valuable each day is. Try to just think about the next few weeks for now. You'll need to conserve your energy... the cytomel leaves the body fairly rapidly.

I do have a 'personal webpage' here at CSN - if you look to the tool bar at the left, you can look it up if you like. It has lots of links, info, etc that may help you along. And do consider joining Thyca, too - it is totally free - here is the groups' main webpage:
http://www.thyca.org

Hope some of this helps. It really is great to be able to share info and symptoms, etc, with people who do understand what you are going through - because we've been there, too. All the very best to you.