Day 5 - Day 7 LID at MarsCon

First, what is MarsCon? MarsCon is an annual science fiction/fantasy convention held in Williamsburg, VA. I've been attending since 2011 and I've been volunteering since 2013 in the ConSuite. What's a ConSuite? Well, it can vary from con to con. At this con, it means meals are provided to staff, guests, volunteers, and attendees from Friday night through Sunday afternoon.

Food provided in the past include sandwiches with lunch meats and cheese or pb and j, hot dogs, nachos, salads, soups, potato bar, bagels, hard boiled eggs, cereal, and snack cakes.
This year didn't stray far with a nacho bar (chips, nacho cheese, beans, chili meat, and salsa) and a salad bar on Friday. Saturday the selection for breakfast was bagels, waffles, hard boiled eggs, pop tarts, and fruit. I think lunch was sandwiches, but I didn't work or go in for lunch. Dinner was leftover nacho bar, soup bar, and salad bar. Sunday breakfast was the same as Saturday.
How I made this weekend work on LID at the con was that I brought something for every meal. I was able to either eat what I brought by itself as my meal or I used what I brought in conjunction with what was offered to make a meal.
Friday:
I had my normal breakfast at work (bagel, egg whites, bacon, and coffee with coconut milk creamer)

My snack was Pringles and a breakfast bar cause I wasn't sure the next time I would eat would be:

I went home and packed and had a ham sandwich on a potato bread thin on the road for lunch (no pic).
Once I got to the con, I checked into the hotel and went to the room and unpacked a little and set things up in the room. Then I registered with the con and got my badge and headed to the ConSuite to work. The best part about working the ConSuite (CS) is getting to see all the brands that they used and comparing them to the LID Life Community website. Sadly, most of the brands used weren't safe. I was still able to add somethings that they had into my pre-bought plan though.

Friday night dinner, I had lettuce, carrots, and tomatoes with salsa as my salad dressing along with some tortilla chips from the CS when combined with my ham sandwich on my bread and some Pringles that was dinner.

Saturday I combined the bagel, bacon, and coconut milk cream that I brought with the hard boiled eggs, banana, and coffee the CS provided for my breakfast. Snacks were some strawberries and fruit rings cereal. Lunch was leftover rotini and a couple of slices of bread for lunch. Dinner was some of the roast that the CS was providing (I got some before it left the prep room), my bread, some Pringles, lemonade provided by the con, and later some Twizzlers:

Sunday breakfast was the same as Saturday but with an apple instead of a banana. I left the convention around 1pm and went to my favorite "fast food" place and ate off the list provided on the LID Life Community website. It was different not having rice, beans, or cheese on my burrito but it was still quite good. I love that I can still have chips, salsa, guacamole, and soda though!

That was a my weekend. Proper planning ahead made a successful weekend. The temptations were strong and plentiful, but I stuck to foods I knew were safe and made the best of my weekend. I had a good time at the con and am looking forward to next year already.

Day 2 - Day 4

Breakfast on Day 2 and Day 4 was hard boiled egg whites, bacon, cinnamon raisin bagel and coffee with coconut milk creamer. The creamer isn't that bad, but it settles pretty quickly, so I have to keep a stirrer in the cup to stir before drinking.

Lunch was leftover Sante Fe chicken on a salad with extra salsa for dressing, Fritos, and Oreos. I ended up eating the banana later as a snack.

Taco Tuesday!! Corn shells, Daiya shredded "cheddar", seasoned ground beef and salsa. We were supposed to have refried beans, but forgot them.

Dessert was coconut milk cookie dough ice cream. It's not all that great, but when you can't have the real thing, it does satisfy a craving.

Dinner on Day 3 was Sausage Rotini and my homemade bread topped with margarine 

Lunch on Day 4 was out at Subway with my Dad. I had a cold cut combo with veggies and mustard.

I wanted something salty but didn't want chips and the crackers I wanted aren't allowed (even non-cheese flavored fish shaped crackers have milk in them). These sunflower kernels hit the spot.

Dinner on Day 4 was hot dogs on potato roll thins and fries with ketchup

Week in review and Day 1 food

Having a plan in place is a great way to be successful in anything.
Since I made 3-week menu in the last post, I felt good going into the first week of LID. The first week had a couple of challenges involved.
The first was that we took our daughter to a live show of popular cable network cartoon. My husband bought sodas and popcorn for all. I had about four handfuls of popcorn before my husband made the comment that he wasn't sure that I could have the popcorn. I put my fifth handful back in the bag. Oops. Luckily, it wasn't a lot of popcorn and it was early on in the diet.
The other was that I went to a yearly sci-fi/fantasy convention. I'll put my thoughts about that weekend into separate post.

The rest of the week went pretty uneventful, including meeting my dad for lunch at a place that has a few LID safe options.

Day 1:
Breakfast was at home because it snowed about 8 inches, so I certainly didn't go into work on time (7:30am), so I had some egg whites white cut up bacon and Daiya shredded cheddar cheese on a cinnamon raisin bagel with margarine.

Lunch was at work since I didn't want to go out on the horrible snow/ice covered roads. Peanut butter and strawberry preserves on my whole wheat bread, Pringles, and some Oreos.

Snack was pb and cut up apple (no pic).

Dinner was Baked Santa Fe Chicken with rice.

A successful first day!

LID Prep

In trying to reduce my stress I decided to make my menu for three weeks of LID at one time. Looking through the LID Life Community website, I ended up with a lot of foods that I would normally make with maybe a few adjustments. A few choices were (all considered LID safe at the time of purchase and I double checked the ingredients for banned substances) :

Breakfast:
Bagels
Scrambled egg whites with vegan cheese (check for sea salt) and sometimes mushrooms
Hard boiled egg whites
Bacon & Sausage from safe brands

Lunch:
Ham sandwich
Canned soup and crackers
Avocado chicken salad (avocado, canned chicken, plain salt, pepper)
Peanut butter and strawberry preserves sandwich

Dinner:
Santa Fe Chicken and rice (Subbed creamed corn with corn kernels)
Spaghetti and meatballs
Ham slices and french fries
One Pot Sausage Rontini with no cream or cheeses
Hamburgers and fries
Sausage and Bean Soup with Pasta with no cheese

Post surgery endo appointment

On October 25, 2016 I had my post-surgery appointment with my endocrinologist. She discussed with me that there was spreading of the cancer outside of the thyroid and I would be required to have a Radioactive Iodine (RAI) treatment. She gave me two handouts on a Low Iodine Diet (LID) that I would be required to be on before the RAI.  It was very restrictive. Lean proteins, fruits, veggies, beans, and grains. Nothing from the sea, no dairy, soy, lunch meats, packaged foods, potato skins, or chocolate.

Four days out of surgery:

Two weeks out of surgery:

Three weeks out of surgery:

A few things happened in November and December in my family that was totally unrelated to my cancer. The big one was that my mom found out she had Stage 4 cancer and passed away in early December.

One of her friends sent me a message around the time of her death and I found out that she also has thyroid cancer was getting ready to go through her RAI around Christmas. She led to me to a group on Facebook that had ideas for LID recipes and that group led me to LID Life Community. There's a Facebook group as well as a website. They have contacted manufacturers regarding the kind of salt used in their products (plain vs iodized salt) and if they have responded with plain and the food doesn't have any other of the banned ingredients (soy, dairy, etc), then it is deemed safe to have while on the LID. Even some restaurants are on the site and that make me happy since two of my favorites are deemed safe.

Surgery day

On October 17, 2016 I went to the surgical center and went through the BP check and the barrage of questions that always comes with a surgery, putting on the hospital gown, having an IV inserted, meeting the anesthesiologist nurse and doctor, and seeing the surgeon again. Finally it's time, I kiss my husband, and they put Round 1 of anesthesia in my IV and I'm rolled to the Operating Room and help get myself on the operating table, they help me get in position and that all I remember until I'm waking up in the recovery area.
Once I'm awake for a little while, I'm able to have some ice chips and I hear that my mom called asking about me. Then my room was ready and they wheel me up there.
Here's my same day incision picture:

I'm on a liquid diet due to the anesthesia and after visiting with my husband for a little while, I send him home to eat dinner and get some rest. I doze off and on with a good chunk of my overnight hours spent watching repeats of The Walking Dead on AMC. I'm allowed up to use the bathroom and I even walked down the hall with the night nurse to get some ginger ale. My surgeon stopped by early in the morning to say my calcium levels were fine and I was free to go once I received my discharge papers.

My husband drove me home and I recovered the rest of the week on the sofa. About a week later I visited the surgeon and all looked fine and he released me to my endocrinologist. 

Meeting with the surgeon

On October 4, 2016 I met with the surgeon and he explained what the procedure entails, the risks, and the aftercare. He said he did over 200 thyroid cancer surgeries a year and had a very small percentage of surgeries that needed later correction, but often did correction surgeries from other surgeons. He drew a diagram for me:

The butterfly-looking in the middle is the thyroid. The circles on the thyroid are nodules. The vertical lines up from it and the horizontal lines between represent my trachea. The two lines below with the "x"s are vocal chords, which have the possibility of being damaged in surgery. The four circles with arrows heading out are the parathyroids which are susceptible to cancer as well.  

After speaking with scheduling, I was set for surgery almost 2 weeks later.

Meeting the endocrinologist

On September 27, 2016 I went to my first endocrinologist visit. She performed her own ultrasound and found two nodules large enough to perform a Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA), one on each side. You can see the needle marks below:

Two days later the cytology results were received and my endo called to say that the nodule on my right side was benign, but the one left was malignant. I have cancer. She referred me to a surgeon to discuss having a total thyroidectomy.

The beginning of my story

I am a 37 year old female. I am married with one daughter. I also have Stage 2 Papillary Thyroid Cancer.

This is my story.

I went to visit my Primary Care Physician (PCP) on August 8, 2016 for a routine hypertension prescription refill visit. During this visit, my doctor did an over-all physical exam. After checking my neck she asked if anyone had ever had a discussion with me about my thyroid. Since no one had, she spoke with me about how she felt some nodules on my Thyroid and was going to have a thyroid blood panel and an ultrasound ordered. Two days later, my labs came back perfect:

On August 12, 2016 I went to the imaging center and had my ultrasound done. I received a call on August 16, 2016 from my PCP stating that she was referring me to an endocrinologist due to an enlarged thyroid with several nodules. Nodules on your thyroid is perfectly normal, especially in females and more so in females that have had children. A few of them where larger than the rest and could be tested further.