I'm in day two of isolation.  Friday I took radioactive iodine to burn out poison me turn me into a huge rampaging lizard monster treat my thyroid.  I have to stay 3 feet away from people for four days because of the residual radioactivity.  The cats are taking it hard.  I've gotten a few pitiful "why won't you pet me" meows while I'm holed up in the den. However, my beloved child, he of the incessant lap climbing and ambush hugs to ad nauseum, won't come closer than ten feet.  He also whimpers when I walk past him from across the room!

So far, I've felt OK; just tired and thirsty and my stomach is upset.  But that could be from anxiety and the low iodine diet.  (Yeah, right.)  And to be totally grossly TMI it feels unusually hot when I pee!  Freaky.  I'm disappointed that there's no glowing, though.  You'd think that if you were going to purposely poison yourself with radioactive materials you could at least glow a little.

The worst thing about this process is the low iodine diet.  I didn't think it was too bad at first; I'd figured you couldn't eat a lot of salty or processed, canned foods.  We always use Kosher salt in our cooking so I knew I could eat stuff at home. What I didn't expect on the "Do Not Eat" list were things like all dairy products and chocolate!  Then came "don't go to restaurants", nothing from a commercial bakery, no lunch meats, and nothing with "red or pink food dyes", and on and on.  But then down at the bottom, almost hidden, were the words "no tea"!  Christ on wheels that is crazy talk, right there!  I mean, you might as well just let the clowns out of their cages.  I think I got the shakes as soon as I read that.

So I was supposed to have dinner at this great French Vietnamese place for my birthday on Thursday which totally got nixed because of the diet.  My best friend baked me a cake instead and brought it over before she knew about the "no chocolate" restriction.  After I blew out the candles and everyone else cut themselves big slices of Mexican chocolate cake and huge scoops of ice cream, my best friend turns to me with fork in hand and says,

"Wow, you know… this is kind of sad."

Munch, munch, munch.

Me: "YES I'M WELL AWARE OF HOW SAD IT IS, THANK YOU!!"

Happy Birthday, thyroid, you rotten bitch.