Thyroid Appreciation Week

Hey kids,

I had an all-day, one-woman party in honor of Thyroid Appreciation Day on Monday. Be glad, very glad that your invites were lost in the mail.

Day starts out with an early-morning phone call. It's my endocrinologist's office; the receptionist wants me to get to the lab right away to do some bloodwork. My last labs came back incomplete.

Why did they come back incomplete? Because they stuck me four times last Monday and only got 2 mls of blood out of me. I love these guys in this particular lab. Well... all except the young, blonde bimbo. She has been unsuccessful every. single. time. she has tried to draw my blood. She always has to get Tony or Mary to finish up for her. Anyway, they're always very nice and gentle with me (Tony and Mary are, anyway), but I can sense the inner anguish on their faces every time I darken their doorway. I'm a difficult draw.

All the rest of the day, I feel like I'm pulling a tugboat with my teeth. I forget things: a conference call, a hair appointment. Around 3:30 I start noticing that I'm slurring my words, that I'm staring blankly at my monitor. That it's hard to breathe. That I can't type. I start to panic.

I call my endo, and the receptionist (the endo's wife, actually. What a couple of Georgah crackahs they are. Likeable, though... I saw them walking around at Wally World the other day, and they looked just like all the other gun-rack totin', compound-dwellin', cousin-datin', home-schoolin', PBR-swillin' trade you see there on a Saturday afternoon, him in shorts and a dirty t-shirt with his belly poking out of the bottom of it and her with a carefully constructed mini-beehive and denim mom-capris. Not looking at all like the most overbooked endocrinologist in Northern Nevada.) listens to my litany of complaints and tells me she'll tell the doctor, and she'll call me back. She calls me back a few minutes later, with a rote recitation from the doctor that if I had done my labs when he had asked, rather than waiting until the last minute, I wouldn't be in this predicament. Yeah yeah yeah. Heard it all before. Am I dying?

She tells me to come in, that the doctor will put me on some sample packets of Synthroid until my official dr appt the following Friday.

Ahhh... Synthroid, sweet Synthroid. Eh. This dose that he has me on now has quelled the enormous, enlarged tongue a wee bit (even though I still slur a bit, and it still tends to slide back into my throat when I sleep, causing me to choke and thrash until I wake up; what a stupid symptom), and I don't feel like every waking moment is a Oh-god-I'm-going-to-pass-out moment. But I'm still fatigued as all get-out and my joints ache and stupid things like walking and typing and chewing make me angry and sore. And oh yeah... The YOU: On a Diet thingie... YOU: have gained 12 pounds since the surgery! My face is swollen, my eyes are swollen, this has played havoc with my carpal tunnel. I feel rode hard and put away flogged, wet and super-sized.

And the voice thing: still hoarse, still all Disco Duck-sounding when it comes to hitting the high notes, or any discernible notes at all, it seems. In fact, while trying to sing to you guys today (Buffalo Springfield: "Love the One You're With," in response to the regularly-asked question around here, "Who's your favorite kid right now...") Daddy just shook his head at me and told me to give it up. Ouch.

I'm now officially mega-hypothyroid. Whereas before the surgery I was hyperthyroid. Also, before the surgery, I had a will to live. Now... ahhh.... too tired. Kill me now. There has GOT to be an easier way for the powers-that-be to determine my baseline of misery than to let me hit rock bottom. But here I am, a thyroid bottom-dweller, and there's nowhere to go but up. Yay me.

Remember, children, I'm not mad at you! I love you. I may look and act like a monster right now, but keep in mind, I'm way too sore and way too listless to inflict any lasting damage to you. I'm not the sweet, cuddly momma you're used to (?), but "If you can't beeeeee with the one you love, bay-beeee, love the one you're with. Love the one you're with."