Wednesday, January 26, 2011

A Turn in Another Direction


I know I’ve been absent from blogging, but you haven’t missed out on much. I turned 40, took a trip to Jamaica, the holidays, winter… blah blah blah. But now I’m back to blog about a new journey I’m undertaking. It’s personal (maybe too personal for the blog) and unlike my past bogging submissions may lack in humor (good lord I hope not). It’s gonna be all about me, my body, and my feelings towards it.

In the past I’ve sprinkled in some funny antidotes (see Too Luscious for the Hampton Jitney) about being a fat woman but now after receiving a medical diagnosis that may or may not affect who I think I am I feel that I need to journal the process.

Immediately after turning 40 I was diagnosed with, Hashimoto's thyroiditis or chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis. Hashimoto's disease is an autoimmune genetic disorder where your immune system thinks that your thyroid is an alien intruder and must be expelled from your body. The thyroid get’s really pissed off by this false accusation but it’s more of a fleer than a fighter so all it does to combat the attack is swell and shut down (see goiter).

Chances are that I’ve lived the first 39 years of my life with this disorder yet no doctor ever took a moment to diagnose me. As far back as I can remember whenever I submitted my body for a physical examination my various doctors would feel my neck, then pause and say with a grimace, “You have big glands”. I never knew how to react to this odd accusation except to say, “I hear that often”. The cycle of medical call and response was finally broken this past fall when at my new gyno she felt my neck, paused, tilted her head then before she could admonish me for my protuberances I proclaimed with a sigh and an eye roll, “I know I have big glands”. Shockingly she shook her head no and with a firm seriousness said, “Make an appointment with your GP, this isn’t your glands it’s your thyroid”.

At my NEWER GP’s office (side note - really why did I resist going to doctors on the Upper East Side for so long, it’s like a country club up here compared to the livestock convention in Queens), she took a feel and said firmly, “No that’s your glands, you just have big glands.” Ok….back to the drawing board. But miracles of miracles 20 min later upon completion of the physical exam my GP recanted her initial dismissal and suggested that I schedule an ultra sound of my thyroid because “Gynecologists are really good at sensing these types of things”.

Two ultra sounds and a few blood tests later my diagnosis was strongly confirmed, Hashimoto's disorder. There is no cure for the disorder; however I can treat the symptoms of my pathetically challenged thyroid with synthetic hormones for the remainder of my life, which I am.

So there it is, the first chapter of many to come. Yet again sorry that this will not be as entertaining as my “Temp Receptionist Stories” or my “On Line Dating Disasters” but sometimes I’m a little bit mushy and introspective and this is just one of those moments.

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