How I See It: Reflections on spirituality, technology, and the art of everyday life

For some time now, I have been wanting to make a post about how I am doing since I started my IVIG treatments, so I will do that here and bring you up to speed on what happened today as well. Monday, August 15, at 6:30 AM, I found myself in the ER of my local hospital. I was there primarily because I was having a very difficult time breathing. This had all started last Thursday when I noticed that I was having trouble speaking. My voice was hoarse; for the last year I had been having bouts of hoarseness, so I was not overly worried. Friday, I was still hoarse and noticed that I was having problems breathing—nothing major, just that it took more effort than normal to breathe. Again, this was something I had been dealing with for several years, so I noted it but did not do anything about it. Saturday, I was feeling worse and having a very hard time talking. Sunday, it got very bad; I noticed that when talking or eating, I would get very short of breath, and I knew that I would h...

I just heard from my doctor’s office, and my most recent TG (Thyroglobulin) level is back. It’s 148 — up from the test they did in June (130) and up from the test last September (81), which was one of the lowest levels I have received since they started testing me. Thyroglobulin in the blood is an important laboratory test for checking whether a patient still has some thyroid present. The value of a serum Tg measurement lies in the fact that Tg can only be made by the thyroid gland — either the remaining normal part or the tumorous part. Normally, after a thyroidectomy, the TG level goes down to zero. In the five years since mine, the TG level has never gotten anywhere near zero. So we knew that somewhere in my body there were still some thyroid cells left behind. This is despite the fact that I have had three rounds of radioactive iodine, but we could not find those cells on any of the imaging studies they have done. As long as the TG level was going down, the doctors fe...

This is the 7th chapter of a book I have written about the life and death of my late wife. I do not know how to get it published, and on the 10th anniversary of our wedding I wanted to at least share this part. Copyright 2011 Odell Sneeden Hathaway, III It took a lot of work on both our parts, but finally the big days were here. The Thursday before the wedding, our families started to arrive from around the country. As each flight came in, Linda and I met it (the TSA won’t let you do that anymore). The men received handshakes and hugs while the women each received a rose (after all, Portland is the City of Roses). Who says there is not a double standard? That night we had the first party. It was a no-host dinner at one of Linda’s and my favorite places, a little Hawaiian-food restaurant near our house. My parents, two of my three sisters and their families (including Teddy, who was a little less than a month old at the time) were there. Linda’s family was represente...