I'm so hot I'm radioactive...oh, wait...

Well today was the day I went in for the first round of serious tests for my thyroid, with round two tomorrow.

It was sort of a weird day.

Had to go in "bright" and early, at 0830, when it was still freaking dark out. I hate that crap. People should not have to get up before the sun. Of course, in the depths of the Michigan winter, that would not happen until what many would call mid morning. It was ten degrees Fahrenheit, too, and I also hate that crap.

First I waited in a waiting room with my husband. Then they called me away, and I got to sit in another waiting room for a while.

Then I got called in to an exam room, where they used a special camera with a lens that looked like a telescope to take the before pictures of the outside of my throat, and also measured the baseline radiation readings. (The after pictures will be taken tomorrow, after my thyroid has had 24 hours to suck up all of that tasty radioactive iodine).

And then I got the joy of drinking some low dose radioactive fluid, mixed with disgusting lukewarm Ann Arbor tap water (Ann Arbor has the worst tasting city water of any place I have ever been - depending on the day it can taste like anything from sewer to swamp. Oddly enough, Detroit has some of the best tasting city water anywhere - but I digress). So I drank it down. The radioactive stuff was in a plastic container put inside a lead lined thermos thingee.

Then I got called to another exam room where they pulled blood and then shot me up with a low dose of radiation. The shot came in a lead lined box.

I then got to wait in a third waiting area, while they gave my thyroid 15 minutes or so to suck up and trap the crap they injected me with.

Then they had me lie down on a table and they took films of my thyroid. Some of the films involved them putting a huge machine right over my head, with the cone pressed into my throat. Unfortunately, this made me have a panic attack, with made me hyperventilate and nearly faint and nearly vomit. But by closing my eyes and counting to one hundred over and over again (each image took about five minutes and I had to stay completely still for that time even though I wanted to slap aside the machine and run away screaming and throwing up and peeing in terror and panic and horror) I managed to remain sane and still.

I was told I could go home after the doctor looked at the films to make sure that they were usable. But I think he saw something in the films, as he decided to feel up my throat. So he put his hands around my neck and felt it by pressing his hands up against it, and had me drink small sips of more disgusting lukewarm Ann Arbor tap water (not good when your stomach is already trying to puke) to see what it felt like from the outside when I swallowed.

So after that, then they said the films were fine, and that I could leave.

We got the hell out of there and started driving home, and was still feeling really queasy. But I was trying really hard not to throw up, as who wants radioactive vomit all over themselves and their car? Even though it was still very cold, I had to crack the car window open for the cold air as it helped calm my stomach, and my husband had to pull over in city parks a couple of times when I started gagging. I did manage not to throw up, which was good. That way my tests tomorrow will not be messed up, plus the city did not have to call out a hazmat team to clean up radioactive puke in a city park.

This took all morning, and they had originally told me I would not have to miss work (I talked to my supervisor as soon as nuclear medicine called me to tell me about my appointment and arranged to have the day off anyway, thank God, as there was no way I could have gone into work after that panic attack or with a stomach that upset) or a driver (my husband volunteered anyway, thank God).

Round two will be tomorrow morning, again bad and early and dark. They will use the telescope thingee to take more pictures of the outside of my throat and read the radiation levels. And then I will get to see the endocrinologist on staff with the nuclear medicine department.

I am really hoping there will be no more panic attack inducing stuff.