Figured I should do a shout out to the mushroom that (probably) gave me cancer. Mushroom cloud that is!!
So, on the 26th of April, 1986 a nuclear reactor in The Ukraine was turned off to stress test the system. Well, it seems that the system was pretty damned stressed, and didn't take well at all to being turned off. It also didn't help, that it hadn't been set up properly in the first place, and a number of other dodgy bits and pieces all around the place. The reactor exploded, and then vented hot, radioactive steam, containing iodine-131 for a start, up into the air to be carried on the winds all around the world in the clouds, to then drop down to the ground in the rain. Once it was up there, there was nothing they could do but watch the weather patterns and wait - but in 1986 radiation wasn't understood as it is now.
For me in particular, I was living in an area of Germany where the rain fell quite hard, and then I moved to Scotland - who through a throw of the dice had also had quite a large portion of fallout due to the wind currents blowing it straight there. From what I understand, the radiation fell to the ground and was absorbed, the grass took it up, the cows ate the grass, they were then milked, and suddenly this radiation was in the food chain for us. At that time, as now, everyone was being told to drink lots of milk, and ensure your children especially drink lots of milk. And as a child of 4, I was drinking milk with every meal, on cereal every morning, and whenever I was thirsty - as I didn't like diluting juice, and loved milk. That puts me at the prime growing and developing age for radiation to do its damage. Because not only was I ingesting it, but it surrounded us all as we went about our lives.
It's very difficult to study the overall effects of the fallout, and there is some disagreement among scientists as to exact numbers. However, they all agree that since Chernobyl, the instances of thyroid cancer has increased dramatically. In 2005, the Chernobyl forum reported 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer, while UNSCEAR (The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) have it reported at well over 6,000. Both of these figures are well over the pre-Chernobyl estimated numbers, and was a number expected to only increase in the children and adolescents who were exposed. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, have their numbers at over 10,000 currently, and are expecting another 50,000 cases to surface over the coming years. These numbers are for the countries and people directly in the blast zone, the problem is, they don't think they can monitor the cases of people in Europe, as it will be too difficult to pick out those who are and aren't a result of the radiation. Though there was a study done in 2006, that paints a very different picture as it looks beyond Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia and instead looks at the world as a whole where the other reports hadn't before.
What they do see in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia though - is that the thyroid cancer is usually papillary. In people who were under the age of 10 at the time, there are often distant metasteses, and it all usually responds well to treatment. Better in fact, than other instances of papillary spread. All of this is true for myself and my own condition, and so it is quite likely that this is why Ihave thyroid cancer.
Does it make a difference to anyone if it is or isn't why? Nope.
But it's quite a cool story to have, and there's no way to prove one way or another if this is why or not. Plus, usually it's only the spies who can say they were radioactively poisoned by the East. So, maybe I'm a spy and they're trying to take me out? I might need to develop that thought for when my nephew is a bit older. Tell him his Aunty is a spy, but she got found out! So they tried to kill her with radiation, but she was too strong, and it only made her sick for a while before she got better and kicked butt. Sounds like a good story for a little boy to believe about his Aunty right?! ;)
*Waves to the real spies after making interesting tags that will probably show up on a flagged list somewhere*
