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Tired and hungry

One of the things about preparing for the radioactive iodine treatment is I have to be off of my thyroid medication until the treatment AND I have to eat a low-iodine diet. I had no idea what this meant until I delved into the internet and the materials my doctor gave me, but here it is in a nutshell:
  • No dairy of any kind (milk, cheese, yogurt, butter). With really no suitable substitutes either.
  • No commerical bread products. No bread from the grocery store.
  • No sea food of any kind.
  • No iodized salt, which at first seems simple (replace the salt in the shakers with non-iodized salt). However, that also means that you can't have salt in the products you buy too, which means practically everything. For example, I found out this weekend that red licorice has salt in it....grrr. I'm a constant food package reader now.
  • No chocolate
These two things (no thyroid meds and the new "diet") are sure to make me crazy. At the soccer games yesterday, the team went to Subway between games. Subway was next to Harris Teeter so I went in there in search of something to eat (I did bring some food but thought I would check it out anyway). I found that they had a salad bar so I had lettuce, mushrooms, chick peas with no dressing and some apple slices.

The funniest thing is people look at me eating this salad at Subway and say things like, "Wow, you are eating healthy." I smile and then want to scream "I really just want a subway sandwich and chips like you!" I'm not that salad eating girl we all know. I'm from Oklahoma and eat because I like to (plus, it's a family event)...and love milk. Instead of coffee for breakfast each morning, I still have chocolate milk for breakfast like a four year old (well, not NOW). Yes, I'm 40 not 4, but it's what I do.

Chris has managed every night to make us all dinner that I can eat. At first, I had visions of the family dinner with me with my sad plate of non-iodized food. However, we found this PDF cookbook at http://www.thyca.org/ with great recipes and alternatives. He has made delicious garlic chicken, pasta, etc. My favorite is Chris's salsa made with fresh veggies using non-iodized salt and he made homemade tortilla chips with the non-iodized salt.

What does the no meds and special diet combo do for me? Prepare whatever thyroid tissue and thyroid cancer cells I have left (could be in lymph nodes, lungs, or bones) to be killed by the treatment. The more you make it "hungry" for the iodine treatment, the better your treatment is. This combo also makes me very tired (could sleep all day), and my metabolism is screwed up, which means all of this healthy eating will probably result in a weight gain! Geez...

So I'm tired after all of this exhausting typing...and want to take a nap now.

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