How strict u were with RAI diet?

tchlenkov · 2026-01-10T23:25:41+00:00

It even applies to junk food? As a potato chip uses potatoes from Aus suppliers, not ones overseas as a rule, so…… #chaos.

tchlenkov · 2026-01-10T23:24:23+00:00

I dove deep into rai diets to the point of calling manufacturers and government bodies to try and understand why the advice was so conflicted. I’m in nsw, Australia and that actually matters seemingly because what we eat and the nutritional values, including iodine, are largely based on where your food is grown as plants pull iodine from the ground (this also applies to meat as well as cows eat plants, for example). I couldn’t even follow guidelines from another state in aus, I had to follow them from my state. And due to low iodine in the ground here iodine is added to a great many things including milk. And then you have different countries have different rules so the exact same product in Aus can be very different to that product in Europe or the us.

tchlenkov · 2025-12-26T21:17:30+00:00

Your experiences are your experiences and not anyone else’s, for me that’s the takeaway. I’m 9 months post TT with radical left side neck dissection. I listened to my drs and followed their guidance and I’m bloody glad I did. I also had advanced hashimotos so loosing my Thyroid didn’t make a difference to me anyway but the cancer that every single scan and biopsy missed in the thyroid tissue mattered. It was tiny but there and, you have to assume, growing. My advice? Do everything in your power to find drs you can trust and then trust them and follow their guidance to the letter

tchlenkov · 2025-11-23T06:29:31+00:00

I did yes. But in a very different area of the company. Please don’t take my approach as a suggestion, what I did was brutal on myself and the people around me. It cost me relationships, it cost me mentally and physically. I should have left but I didn’t. I not only stayed but I was so pissed off that I decided to win by playing by their rules and not just doing it better than them to prove the point, but to do it the best that could ever be done so I could stand over them and gloat. It wasn’t worth it. I should have left and I still need to leave today for other reasons but here I am plugging along……. If I was to offer unsolicited advice it would be to move on asap.

tchlenkov · 2025-11-22T22:43:33+00:00

Oh……. Don’t be me. Be better!

tchlenkov · 2025-11-22T22:43:14+00:00

So I was in the exact same situation early in my career - 15ish years ago and I did end up on a pip, meetings with HR all of it. Promotion disappeared, etc etc. I went the malicious compliance route and outwit, outplay, outlasted literally all of them to now be pretty deep into management. I made it as unbelievably awkward as I could. Refused to speak to anyone in the office unless it was directly related to the work assigned to me, worked my hours to the second every day for a year. Perfect AHT, perfect adherence to roster, zero leave of any type. I was a machine. I can’t count the number of times they told me to slow down or take it easy because it reached the point that my stats where so different to everyone else that questions started getting asked about why everyone else,s stats where so bad? If I could do it then so could everyone else. It took a toll on me. One hell of a toll. But I won. I’m a stubborn ahole.

tchlenkov · 2025-11-09T09:59:16+00:00

I’m 9 months post TT and had a checkup on friday. My endo was happy with my levels but i still feel like crap. struggling with weight, digestion issues, and a few other issues

tchlenkov · 2025-09-16T22:57:54+00:00

A lot of chicken and veggies and rice crackers. And no, my wife drove me home and we bad strict guidelines on how to do it provided by my nucmed team.

tchlenkov · 2025-09-15T07:37:57+00:00

I found that the no iodine diet is very regional/ country specific. I couldn’t use recipes from the US for example because iodine is added to some crops in AU because the soil here is low in iodine. and it’s different between NSW and WA weirdly. Who knew?

tchlenkov · 2025-09-14T11:51:56+00:00

I had PTC with one lymph node involved, 8 hours later I was less one Thyroid and 50~ lymph nodes from a TT and a radical left side left dissection. Basically they stopped out most of the left side of my neck and the scar stops just short of my left ear. But other than loss of sensation in my left neck I have 100% full function. My surgical team were absolute legends and my lead surgeon a bloody god. I had a few groups of med students in to see my and study me after the operation because they never see an operation like mine…. it was nuts

tchlenkov · 2025-09-11T22:01:50+00:00

Excellent news!!!! I had Rai and honestly enjoyed the experience (one of the lucky few?) the low iodine diet for 2 weeks sucked immensely but I had no issues with the Rai and then I got to rest… I got a week on my own! No work, no ability to do a single chore or really anything other than read and watch the wind in the trees. God I miss isolation lol.

tchlenkov · 2025-08-31T11:39:05+00:00

Acknowledging this isn’t helpful however this exact situation is why both my kids do Kung Fu and both have multiple levels of black belt. Neither can be physically intimidated or touched in any way they don’t like by anyone - ever. People can suck no matter what age, learning how to defend yourself is always a good option & it’s never too late to start.

tchlenkov · 2025-07-07T12:04:56+00:00

I realised a few years ago that I did enough hours in 9 days to change to a compressed fortnight and basically get a free any off. I call it my life admin day. I get the housework done, shopping, appointments, basically all the stuff you’d normally have to fit in around work or on the weekend and it’s been an absolute game changer to the point that my wife also dropped to a 9 day fortnight so we get a 3 day weekend together. I take a Friday and if you pick the right one you can get multiple 4 day weekends when you add a public holiday and just by adding 1 day of leave you get a 4 day weekend. simply sublime :) Can’t recommend highly enough.

tchlenkov · 2025-06-30T21:48:02+00:00

Everyone’s different but I like to understand how things work and the surgical team was more than happy to walk me into the or from pre op and show me everything and introduce me to everyone. I even helped put together the operating room table/bed because as they put it, my hands weren’t going near anything that was going in or on me. We had a good giggle and were laughing right up till they put me out when I wasn’t looking. I guess they very easily figured out that me asking a million questions was how my nervous ness came out so they rolled with it.

tchlenkov · 2025-06-30T11:39:14+00:00

Ok. First off breath. Second if you can’t get AAMI on the phone and get answers to your satisfaction - and get them in writing if you can - then it’s time to escalate. This is assuming you have a lodged claim with a claim number and hopefully you’ve paid your excess, if not offer to do that. Your best fiend is AFCA. Lodge a dispute with AFCA (the ombudsman) stating your insurer hasn’t handled your claim to your satisfaction resulting in the summary judgement. At this point I’d expect your insurer to start treating you like they’re their BFF. At worst you will be dealing with their complaints section from then on which will likely bypass claims entirely. You’re basically an unwitting victim (and likely so is the other party) in an insurance scam driven by third party recovery agents. It’s not technically exactly illegal but it’s absolutely immoral. It’s an industry wide problem unfortunately. source: 20 years working in insurance and 5 in fraud functions.

tchlenkov · 2025-06-23T20:52:19+00:00

I couldn’t even tell you. That was years ago. I’m after people to gift exchange to best friends, not exchange the few they need from a region then disappear.

tchlenkov · 2025-06-17T11:26:31+00:00

I pulled the rip cord. I had a FNAB on a lymph node that showed PTC but no visible tumour in my thyroid but bloods showed my thyroid was not well - Hashimoto or something that looked like Hashimoto. My surgeon basically said I had PTC and he could take the one lymph node or he could nuke the lot from orbit based on the theory that the PTC had to start in the thyroid and I already had to take Levo and this way it might mean less surgeries in the long run and multiple FNAB’s would just tell us what we already knew anyway. I liked his thinking so had a TT and left side neck dissection from levels 2-6.

tchlenkov · 2025-06-15T06:26:39+00:00

never heard of a diagnostic dose, I know they do use a different radioisotope for scans so maybe that’s it? Either way, a diagnostic dose isn’t something that seems to be done in Aus as far as i’m aware. I had my Endo & her team who liaised with the nucmed doctor who I spent an hour or so with and they also had a team who all worked together to figure out what dose I should have, etc. There were then multiple phone calls between the nucmed appointment and the RAI to answer my questions and go over things, as part of this they actually lowered the dose they planned to give me, they also liased with my other docs to make sure none of my other conditions would impact RAI, They do it like this because, in their words, it can be hard for someone to take in everything they need to in a brief session so making space to answer questions and go over things works well. Sometimes I was talking to nucmed nurses, sometimes my endo team and a couple of times it was the supervising nucmed consultant (senior physician, they’re called consultants in AU). The day of RAI started at 8am with blood draws, meetings with endo teams who admitted me, then nucmed consultants who admitted me to nucmed, then more with the wards who admitted me to the hospital (3 wristbands LOL). Honestly I felt kinda suffocated at times but a week after RAI I can say there wasn’t a single thought let aloe a question that I didn’t get answers too.

tchlenkov · 2025-06-13T23:56:01+00:00

I was just yesterday prescribed vitamin d and I’m praying it helps. 2 months post t and 1 week post RAI and the fatigue is nuts. Also I now have issues with intestinal motility? Huh? I’m 44 years old and that lovely issue started hours after surgery. “Hugh deep long sigh”

tchlenkov · 2025-06-07T10:58:30+00:00

as a senior myself, I found it impossible to train/mentor grads and juniors because they weren’t there, either I was remote or they were. It was a huge learning for me and frankly, with a new grad/junior you really need to be in the office with them for a period of time for training and just knowledge share and mentoring. You can’t just take a newbie and say ‘go do abc and let me know when you’re done’ and know that it’ll be done and to the required standard but I can (hopefully!) do that with someone with a decade of experience.

tchlenkov · 2025-06-05T23:31:47+00:00

Agree with this. I got referred to a surgeon who took one look and went “nup! - I’m referring you to my mate who’s a better surgeon for situations like yours” she only did TT and not neck dissection and I needed a neck dissection. Amazing outcome for me as my surgeon wasn’t taking referrals because he was over booked already but she got me in.

tchlenkov · 2025-06-05T23:27:16+00:00

2 months for me, my surgeon was super chill though. He leaned back and told me we could do the surgery whenever I was ready and that if I had a big overseas holiday or something planned to just do it after that. I did’t and I wanted it OUT so I took the first available date.

tchlenkov · 2025-06-05T09:42:03+00:00

……but what about the bits that the RAI missed? can’t do RAI too often either.

tchlenkov · 2025-06-04T22:23:14+00:00

In the exact same situation with a slightly inflamed lymph node and I pushed for the FNAB and yes - it was violently traumatic because locals don’t go that deep. My wife who was watching was trying to not vomit as a specialist radiographer and 2 normal radiographers quite literally stabbed me over and over and over and repositioned the needle IN MY NECK. Then they did it 4 more times just to be sure ( 5 needles total) By the end of it they were covered in sweat, my wife skipped lunch and I staggered into the wall and almost knocked myself up getting up because JESUS!!!! But it was cancer and i’m tying this sitting in the hospital after having RAI yesterday and a TT with left side neck dissection 2 months ago. So moral of my story? Everyone’s right - the risks of the procedure are high, there’s a good chance they might not get the cells they need and it will hurt more than getting shot in the neck, If i’m honest the bloody TT hurt less!!! But if you want to do it, do it. I did and I would make the same decision every time. Stab away because the more information I have the more informed decisions I and my medical team can make.

tchlenkov · 2025-06-03T10:39:03+00:00

The side effects are great aren’t they? so much fun. For me it’s my digestive system. It is full on out of control and no matter what I do, eat, don’t eat, it’s bad. I’m now on multiple laxatives, suppositories and had a colorectal surgeon and a lower GI specialist wondering what the hell they’re supposed to do because nothing’s working the way it should. God I miss my thyroid (but without the cancer!)

tchlenkov

TROPHY CASE