science is crazy.
the things that people have discovered and imagined and come up with never cease to amaze me. i mean, the whole radioactive iodine creation? amazing! who figured that shit out? and who in the world tested it? i saw an ad looking for volunteers for an HIV vaccine study in the paper the other day. can you imagine how awesome that would be if it really works? but how in the world do you test this, and what happens to the volunteers if it doesn't work?

part of my "new normal" is getting blood drawn every few weeks. so far this has been mostly to check my aforementioned pitiful calcium level and a few other hormone and blood component levels. but today's labs are bigger than that. today's labs will tell me if i still have cancer or not. today's labs will tell me if i have to have more radiation or not.

it is amazing to me that one small vial of blood can tell me all of that. i mean, i'm being a little bit dramatic here. the thing about all of this is that it's really just a whole lot of waiting. we'll do this test and call with the results next week. we'll do this biopsy and let you know. we'll schedule the surgery and see what we find. we'll set you up with a specialist in six weeks. we'll give you this dose and see how you feel. we'll draw labs and check your calcium levels. we'll draw labs and check your pth levels, and your thyroxine levels, and your thyroglobulin levels... if they look good this time it's no guarantee they will next time, or the time after, or the time after...

i would say that i feel like i'm healed, like all is well with me. but i never felt like i had cancer in the first place.

no matter what happens i am not looking forward to seeing my endocrinologist, whom i have come to refer to as 'dr. sunshine.' good news from him sounds like a death sentence, so i can't imagine how he presents bad news. hopefully i won't have to find out... my appointment with him is tuesday at noon. you know, it's crazy how such tiny amounts of time can have such huge and longstanding impacts on our lives. how long does it take to say "...and it is cancer."? and how long does that sentence live on?

if you are the praying type feel free to ask that i might receive whatever news he has for me gracefully. a number of people have said to me that they don't understand what God is doing, why he is doing all of this. well me neither. but i have never felt like he is doing it to me, and i have never felt how nice he is until all of this. no one has ever been as nice to me as he has during this silly stupid time, and so i will not ask him why but simply say thanks. and keep asking for help.