The Beauty of Normal
Normal is a wonderful state to be in. You can't appreciate it fully until one day something happens and normal gets taken away from you and you can't get it back for some time. After a while you realize how wonderful normal is and you yearn to find a way back to normal. If the thing that took normal away from you is a health issue and is said to be resolvable and if you're like me, you work like crazy to get back to normal.
In 2005 I was diagnosed with Grave's Disease for which I was treated in the Fall of that year. In the initial treatment of Grave's, they knocked out part of my thyroid with radiation. Then I waited about a year before I was put on thyroid hormone to replace what my irradiated thyroid was making in insufficient quantities. Then I waited some more to see if the level of thyroid hormone was correct which is determined by having blood tests done and by reporting on how I felt. Trying to get the level of thyroid hormone right is like watching the longest slowest movie you ever saw. It is like watching and waiting for paint to dry day after day after day, month after month. You are trapped in your skin, a prisoner of the whims of the hormone and the doctor who writes your prescription.
After a year of being on the medication I still did not feel normal. I missed normal very much. I was upset. I talked to my doctor, a man well respected in his field, the head of the endocrinology division at a medical school. He adjusted things a bit, gave me another type of thyroid hormone, and told me there were limits to what could be done. I went along with his program, trying to be satisfied and not whine too much while still missing that old familiar normal. The months dragged on. The symptoms of insufficient thyroid hormone remained.
When I don't feel normal, there is no convincing me that this is as good as it gets. It didn't set well with me when my doctor told me that there wasn't much more he could do for me. When I was having blood drawn for something else, I had an opportunity on my own to check my hormone levels mid-year from when I would see that doctor again. The hormone levels were off! They were not right. I called my doctor and let him know and also discussed my multiple symptoms of being hypothyroid which he expressed doubt about being due to my thyroid levels. His dismissing my symptoms made me angry. So angry that I wrote him a four page letter letting him know the illogic of his statement and how much I disagreed with it. While he hadn't agreed with me on the symptoms, he did increase my medication and that did the trick! Normal returned! Not perfection but normal! I wasn't expecting perfection but when normal came back, I recognized it and welcomed it back with open arms!
I wrote my doctor another letter, letting him know that normal was back. And telling him all the ways that I felt better, all the symptoms that were now gone. I made quite a list. A couple of months later I had an appointment with him and I went over it all again. Thyroid hormone affects things that you might not even realize that it affects. I won't list all of the things that were normalized as it makes a lengthy list. One simple thing that improved was the condition of my skin. I wasn't expecting how improved my skin would be! That was a pleasant surprise! What was the best part about having normal back was having a clarity of thought that I had been missing for over two years. Also I was able to sleep and feel rested, something else I had been missing for a long time. Maybe in another post on another day I will list all the ways that I learned that thyroid hormone level can affect us.
I have had normal back since the Spring of this year and I am excited, thrilled, delighted, and pleased to feel plain old ordinary normal! Normal is a highly underrated condition! Normal is wonderful and especially beautiful when you get it back after not having it for a while. I don't think I'll ever take feeling normal for granted again!
Ginny
In 2005 I was diagnosed with Grave's Disease for which I was treated in the Fall of that year. In the initial treatment of Grave's, they knocked out part of my thyroid with radiation. Then I waited about a year before I was put on thyroid hormone to replace what my irradiated thyroid was making in insufficient quantities. Then I waited some more to see if the level of thyroid hormone was correct which is determined by having blood tests done and by reporting on how I felt. Trying to get the level of thyroid hormone right is like watching the longest slowest movie you ever saw. It is like watching and waiting for paint to dry day after day after day, month after month. You are trapped in your skin, a prisoner of the whims of the hormone and the doctor who writes your prescription.
After a year of being on the medication I still did not feel normal. I missed normal very much. I was upset. I talked to my doctor, a man well respected in his field, the head of the endocrinology division at a medical school. He adjusted things a bit, gave me another type of thyroid hormone, and told me there were limits to what could be done. I went along with his program, trying to be satisfied and not whine too much while still missing that old familiar normal. The months dragged on. The symptoms of insufficient thyroid hormone remained.
When I don't feel normal, there is no convincing me that this is as good as it gets. It didn't set well with me when my doctor told me that there wasn't much more he could do for me. When I was having blood drawn for something else, I had an opportunity on my own to check my hormone levels mid-year from when I would see that doctor again. The hormone levels were off! They were not right. I called my doctor and let him know and also discussed my multiple symptoms of being hypothyroid which he expressed doubt about being due to my thyroid levels. His dismissing my symptoms made me angry. So angry that I wrote him a four page letter letting him know the illogic of his statement and how much I disagreed with it. While he hadn't agreed with me on the symptoms, he did increase my medication and that did the trick! Normal returned! Not perfection but normal! I wasn't expecting perfection but when normal came back, I recognized it and welcomed it back with open arms!
I wrote my doctor another letter, letting him know that normal was back. And telling him all the ways that I felt better, all the symptoms that were now gone. I made quite a list. A couple of months later I had an appointment with him and I went over it all again. Thyroid hormone affects things that you might not even realize that it affects. I won't list all of the things that were normalized as it makes a lengthy list. One simple thing that improved was the condition of my skin. I wasn't expecting how improved my skin would be! That was a pleasant surprise! What was the best part about having normal back was having a clarity of thought that I had been missing for over two years. Also I was able to sleep and feel rested, something else I had been missing for a long time. Maybe in another post on another day I will list all the ways that I learned that thyroid hormone level can affect us.
I have had normal back since the Spring of this year and I am excited, thrilled, delighted, and pleased to feel plain old ordinary normal! Normal is a highly underrated condition! Normal is wonderful and especially beautiful when you get it back after not having it for a while. I don't think I'll ever take feeling normal for granted again!
Ginny
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