After a spot opens to work summer school at my job, I think I could use the extra cash so I take it. I need a break from the city so I go to Miami with my boyfriend’s sister (my lil’ sis) and her friend. We are blessed with gorgeous weather. I pray my rosary every day after a wonderful friend, who I hope will be the priest that hosts my marital ceremony someday, teaches me how. I believe that everyone has the right to change, and I went back into Catholicism because it felt like I came back to a peaceful and welcoming home with a mother and a father that loved me regardless of where I had been. I come back to the city ready to work, but summer school is slow, not much to do which is good for me since I am still hypo. I get on the low iodine diet, not really in the mood to make creative meals so I stay away from dairy (so hard!), sodas (easy), seafood (easy), any thing with salt (which I later realized I did not need to do), among a few of the many things I discovered had iodine. It was no fun, but only lasted a week. Finally on Monday July 20, 2009, same day I had to go to a godparent course required for my nephew/godson’s baptism, I go in for the radioactive pill. I needed to be away from people for five hours due to the radioactivity, especially pregnant women and babies. Dr. Barandes tells me I have to urinate as much as possible so that the radioactivity does not remain in my bladder. July 22, 2009 I go in for the scan. I am emotional because I felt that this day determined the end or just another part of the excruciating cycle. I lay on the machine as the examiner takes pictures he says, “So far so good, this is going by quick, that is a good sign”. I close my eyes and feel Jesus and Mary with me. I am not alone. The scan was supposed to take an hour or so, it took fifteen minutes. After the examiner is done, Dr. Barandes comes in and takes a look at the images. He sits with me and explains them to me “This scan tells us if there is any thyroid tissue left in your body in which the cancerous cells could go to. If there was any thyroid tissue left the radioactivity would seem present. But as you see here it only went to the digestive system and places it should have gone such as the remaining thyroid tissue Dr. Lim needed to leave for your parathyroid glands. You are free, as I told you, you would be. Now go on and live your normal life.”