How do I go through 6 weeks radiation and chemotherapy, alone?

I am so sorry to hear that you have to go through this, but I am equally inspired by your focus and tenacity.

I am a bit curious about the use of chemotherapy and radiation treatment as opposed to radioactive iodine. Thyroid tissue (and as I understand it, thyroid cancer cells) absorb iodine which makes thyroid cancer treatable using radioactive iodine which ablates the cancerous cells and is much less impactful to your body than chemo or radiation.

I was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer back in 2008 and had a full thyroidectomy followed by two rounds of radioactive iodine. I take a slightly higher dose of levothyroxine to keep my TSH levels down and have been free of thyroid cancer since.

Good luck and Godspeed!!!

Hi. Thank you for your well wishes. I did ask the oncologist - why not RAI. His response was they need something more aggressive. My cancer is outside the thyroid plastered to my trachea. I am with Sloan Kettering in NYC. They have a reputation for defeating cancer with the first treatments, rather than an iterative approach over time.
The radiation is 5 days, for 6 weeks. The chemo is a very low dose 1 x per week. They found it boosts the radiation.
They have done a brain MRI, CT neck and CT lungs. All will be used as baselines going forward.
hoping for a cure or super treatment for all cancer.

I too am so sorry to hear this. I am a 61 one year old female. I am scheduled for a partial thyroidectomy tomorrow morning. In February this year I had my right tonsil removed as a precaution as it was larger than the left one, my ENT did not think we would find cancer but there was. I underwent 33 treatments of radiation only. I drove myself to all the appointments up until the last week. The last week and the 2 weeks after I completed radiation were the hardest. My throat was so so sore that it hurt to even swallow water. I tried the magic mouth wash and it was helpful. Part of my difficulty was that from the second week of radiation my taste was off and nothing tasted good, when there is no joy in eating it becomes that much more difficult to try to eat even soft foods. I was very tired and weak because I wasn’t eating, even drinking protein drinks was awful. I hate to be a a “Debbie downer” but I’m fearful it may be very difficult for you without support, is there a friend or relative who can help out? Or a local organization that may help provide transportation to treatment? You may only need this for the last week or two, that was when my husband stepped in and drove me to treatments.
If you can eat and get adequate nutrition it’s possible you will fair better than I did. I wish you all the best! Just know that the journey is hard, but you will get through it! Sending you hugs

Thank you my name is Peter