bbbbbbbeeeeeeeetttttttaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Iodine 131 is a radioisotope of iodine and has a half life of 8.02 days.

And tomorrow (actually later today I suppose) my mum is going to be ingesting some so it can tear through her body and obliterate any remaining pieces of thyroid that happened to have gotten a firm grip on the inside of her body when the surgeon went in and yanked the whole thing out.

I'm going to have a radioactive mother. Crazy.

In preparation for this treatment, she has had to cut iodized salt out of her diet (which is really hard given that salt is apparently in EVERYTHING), among other things. Like chocolate, which I have a feeling was harder for her to give up than the salt.

Anyways, she has to go off and live in isolation for a few days so she doesn't turn us all into glowing green people with flippers. But the stupid thing is, the hospital, where she is getting the treatment (called ablation), and which is equipped to handle radioactive people, refuses to even keep her there for a day. So instead she gets sent out into the world to share her beta particles and gamma rays with everyone.

When they say health care for all, they damn well mean it. Iodine 131 for all!

It's a good thing she is a responsible human, and hiding herself in an empty apartment for a week. Otherwise, who knows how many people could get Chernobyled?

It is especially important that she not be around me or my brothers, since (irony) radiation causes thyroid cancer, and it is also familial! Yipppppy.




Ok, well, I'm off to go pretend to study some more.

ps. The treatment is called ablation. Not the hospital.

pps. But don't you think that would be a cool name for a hospital? Ablation Hospital. "AH!" for short. Same thing people say when they find out they need to go there.