Update on my scan week: June 11-15.

Good morning! I hope that everyone is having a wonderful day so far! This week has been a pretty crazy week for me. My week was filled with St. Jude appointments and scans. I went to the hospital (St. Jude) every day. On monday I checked in and had 3 appointments. My first appointment was triage and in triage they take your vitals and do lab work. Lab work is never really a burden for me because I use LMX cream and this cream completely numbs the surface that you apply it to. A lot of kids at St. Jude have lines to get their chemo but the lines can also be used to take their lab work. Because I do not have a line I get my lab work through my arm that is numbed so it is never really a problem. St. Jude truly goes above and beyond to make sure that you go through all of your procedures and appointments with the least pain possible. So after my lab work and vitals I headed over to the endocrine building to get my Thyrogen shot. In order for me to get my scans I have to have no thyroid hormones in my body and low iodine. Because I got my thyroid removed every morning I take a thyroid hormone replacement to supply me with the hormones and energy that I need to get through the day. My choices for scans were to either go hypo or try to find this wonder drug called Thyrogen (which was very hard for a lot of doctors to get their hands on). Thyrogen is a series of two shots in your rear end and it depletes all of the thyroid hormones in 2 days instead of taking almost a month. For my treatment in the fall I had to go hypo and it honestly was terrible. Going hypo means that you take away my thyroid hormone replacement and it takes around three to four weeks for it to leave my body. During these three to four weeks I am in my bed and asleep because I do not even have the energy to do anything. Once I was done going hypo it took about 5 months for me to start feeling better and be able to go to school for full days instead of half days. I was not completely back to normal but I was a lot better than I was when I was hypo. Because my experience of going hypo was so miserable we requested the Thyrogen drug. The LORD truly blessed me and my family and the pharmacy got their hands on these magical shots! In order to achieve low iodine levels I went on a no-iodine diet for three and a half weeks. Since almost EVERY food contains iodine I could only eat certain fruits, veggies, and a certain pasta. This was not the most fun "diet" to go on but my wonderful mother went on it with me so it wasn't as hard! It was a lot better to go on this diet in the summer because all of the yummy fruits were in season unlike when I had to go on this diet in the fall. Wow that was a long explanation and I hope that it made sense. :) My Thyrogen shot went very well on Monday but my bum was a little sore and I started to feel sick. Because my thyroid hormones are still being depleted I started to feel very weak and tired and I also got a pretty bad headache. I had one more appointment for the day and it was a meeting with Child Life. Child Life is specialized for the teens at St. Jude. It is hardest for the teens because we actually know what is going on so the Child Life specialists's jobs are to make activities for us and try to get our mind off of everything. Child Life puts "meetings" on your schedule if you are having a long day or a long week and you normally just go and hang out with the other teens at St. Jude. During my "meeting" we all made summer bucket lists which was so much fun!! I love all of my friends at St. Jude and I really enjoy getting to spend time with them. Even if you do not have a "meeting" on your schedule you are still welcome to go to the teen room. The teen room has computers, video games, a jukebox, movies, and a craft station. The best part of this room is that no parents are allowed! It is so wonderful because sometimes you just need to get away and talk with teens that are going through the same thing as you. After spending time with my friends I started to feel really bad so I called my mom and she came to the teem room (do not worry she did not come in it ;) ) and got me to take me home. My next day was exactly like my day before: labs and Thyrogen shot. I was feeling pretty crummy and very tired on Tuesday as the Thyrogen began to kick in. I got to visit with all of my wonderful friends again and said goodbye to one of my friends that we thought was leaving to go home the next day. Turns out that she had a couple of more appointments so she did not leave until Friday morning! She is truly a wonderful girl and her love for Jesus Christ is shown through her attitude for her situation. She is one of the older teens and is such an inspiration to all of the other teen girls. I went home after my tiring day and got to eat my WONDERFUL no iodine food haha. On wednesday I went in for a small does of radiation. This radiation is called radioactive iodine I-123. I took the radioactive iodine and because there was no/low iodine in my body the left over thyroid tissue would suck up this iodine and on my scans it would glow. This makes it easy for the doctors to be able to see how the treatment is working. This was a small does of radiation so I did not have to be in isolation like I did when I had my treatment. I was pretty worn out from the Thyrogen shots but the radiation took me over the top. I was exhausted. I got to go home and I slept for almost the rest of the day! The next morning I woke up and headed to St Jude for my 24-hour scan. The scan lasted about an hour and a half. The best part about scans is that my really sweet nurse always gets me a heated blanket so after like 10 or 15 minutes I am sound asleep. I have had a lot of scans at St. Jude so sometimes when I am not tired it is just really boring but my nurse brought in some ipod speakers and I got to plug up my phone and play my favorite songs! I played my favorite songs from Hillsong and Elevation Worship. I am not going to lie it is pretty scary when you are in the scan because your mind starts to wander and you start to think about all of the things that can show up but with my worship music playing in the background I could truly feel the LORD's presence and his loving arms wrapping around me. It was such a wonderful feeling to be in this pretty scary situation and feel the LORD's presence. I have always been at peace with my situation because I know that the LORD did not give me cancer to punish me but he BLESSED me with it. Cancer has been such a blessing for me! My walk with Christ has been amplified like 1000 times! I know that no matter what results I was going to hear it was all part of God's plan. His plan is better than any plan that I can think of for myself. I will still praise him no matter what the results are I will celebrate if they are good and I will thank Him for blessing me with another trial if something were to show up. The next morning I went in for scans again but these only lasted about an hour. I was really tired so I did not ask for the ipod speakers and used this wonderful opportunity to take a nap. As I was trying to fall asleep I was just sitting there praying and asking for courage and comfort. After the scans were over my nurse asked me to stay in the hospital until she showed the scans to the nuclear doctor and asked if we needed to take any more pictures. As I was waiting in the cafeteria with my mom and best friend's mom (basically my second mom) I saw my doctor and I asked if I could go off of my no-iodine diet and he said yes!! I ran into the cafeteria and bought a huge slice of pizza. Man that pizza was delicious. St. Jude has the best food ever and their pizza is the best pizza I have ever tasted!! It was even better than I remember since I had not been able to eat it for three and a half weeks. There is also a Starbucks in the cafeteria and so I went and got a java chip frappachino. So good. We still have not heard the results and we will hopefully know on Monday. These scans were just a check in to see how I am doing in my treatment. Please keep me in your prayers for my recovery and the road I have ahead of me. Also pray that the LORD will put people in my life at St. Jude to minister and reach out to. Thank you everyone for all of the prayers and support. They mean the world to me!
-Kendree