Undetectable

Lots of things are undetectable at some point in time - my sense of humor and my patience level are two things that seem to dip into the realm of undetectable more often than I would like. Yesterday we got word that Henry's thyroglobulin level is now considered 0, with thyroid tissue in his body undetectable. Another thing on our list of undetectable, but this one made me cry with relief.

This is incredibly good news for him and for us. Since any thyroid tissue left in his body since about March was cancer, this is a huge step towards declaring him cancer-free. He has a chest CT scan in Salt Lake on Thursday to check the spots in his lungs but we anticipate it being clear as well. I don't want to jinx anything, but I really think we are close to putting this behind us, at least for now.

Henry will have to deal with periodic blood tests for the rest of his life to monitor his levels. If his thyroglobulin starts to go up, it could indicate a recurrence. Since he is so young, there is about a 30% chance of a recurrence over his lifetime. We also have to check his TSH levels - right now they are a bit too high. They aren't too bad and actually in the low normal range for the average person but thyroid cancer patients need to have their TSH hold steady at a below-normal level. This will happen every so often as he grows and gains weight so we are going to up his dose of thyroid hormone and retest in two months to make sure it's back down to where it needs to be. He was a little bummed about this at first but really it doesn't change anything for him - he still has to take a pill every morning so he'll just take a different color pill. No big deal.

However, the threat of additional treatment and the possibility of having to travel out of state for further treatment is significantly decreased now. We meet with the doctor in about a month and we'll get the lowdown on further monitoring.

But today we breathe a sigh of relief! I'm starting to have a good feeling about 2011.