Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Fallout Boy - Day 14: Still sick as crap

'S'why I haven't done a fallout boy post since Friday. 

Sinus and chest congestion, coughing, sneezing, headache, sore throat,  joint aches, intestinal disturbances poor temperature regulation... Your basic respiratory infection. 

I'm feeling somewhat better than I was a couple days ago; but it's probably going to be hanging on for a while given the condition of my immune system. 

Yes, I know, any kind of infection can be dangerous in my condition. Yes, we're keeping a careful eye on it. Temp and blood pressure every few hours, tons of fluids (I'm the only person I know who GAINS weight when he's sick), and the second anything gets out of bounds I'm going to the ER and/or urgent care.

Such is life with a compromised immune system. 

On the whole weight thing... I lost 38lbs in the first two days after I went on my levothryoxine in conjunction with my diuretics; but I had to stop the diuretics when I got sick, and have gained a bunch of that back. Can't wait until this infection passes so I can start losing weight again. 

I have been keeping my numbers, but I reduced my measurements to one per day when I fell below 50uSv/h peak. My immediate surroundings have all fallen down to a small multiple of background and are slowly fading. My skin surface is less than 20uSv/h everywhere, including directly over my thyroid bed. 

Actually, as of right now, I'm under 20 mSv/h over my thyroid bed, and under 10mSv/h everywhere... Under 5uSv/h most places; including anywhere my wife might be dosed pressed up against me. 

It's FINALLY safe for my wife and I to actually sleep together in the same bed. 

So, from my case, I can say that the exceedingly broad estimates of 4 days to 4 weeks as "safe to sleep with your pregnant wife" are correct; and the "rough guess" of "about two weeks" by my docs is right about on the money... But honestly, for anyone who has to go through this, I STRONGLY recommend you get yourself a beta+gamma dosimeter like we did; because every case is different, and a lot of our assumptions (and a lot of the guidelines) were very much incorrect (both on the good side and the bad side). 

Also, the degree and speed which I have purged radiation out, indicates that I've had a LOT more cancerous tissue dieoff over the past week... Which is probably contributing a lot to how miserable I've felt (purging radioactive dead cancerous tissue causes flulike symptoms in some people); but which otherwise is a good thing.

Oh and even with the thyroid meds, my sense of taste and smell are mostly gone again; which is most likely, again, a side effect of the radiation, and the purging of dead nuked tissue.