Our daughter had a scan on Thursday to assess how well the Radioactive Iodine (RAI) treatment worked. The residual radiation showed up in the area once occupied by her thyroid; there was none lurking here or there, where it shouldn't be. This means the cancer was contained in her thyroid and hadn't spread.
The RAI she received is the same type that is causing all the grief at the Fukushima reactor in Japan. Nuclear power plants have always given me the willies. The damage from accidents seems so hard to contain and radioactive waste so difficult to handle. Even the threat of unwitting contact with RAI, which has a half-life of eight days, is a problem. For instance, you're not supposed to spray surfaces with cleaner, because the RAI could become airborne. (We're to stay out of the "isolation ward" for two months.)
Sometimes I think it would have been better if mankind had not opened this Pandora's box, and yet, without atomic medicine, where would our daughter be?
