Let’s make s’mores.

The time left until my big, exciting appointment with the Endocrinologist is   s. l. o. w. l. y   ticking away.  Every day seems like a year.  Every minute seems like an hour in which the world is sitting on my shoulder saying, “You don’t hold us up very well, woman.  Your shoulders are weak.  You need to workout more.” 

Tabitha D’umo looks at me from the cover of her stupid Dance DVD.  Mocking me.  I entertain thoughts of burning her face up in a bonfire as I dance around it, naked, in my front yard.  But it is below freezing, and I can’t find my matches.  Darn.

Last week was a long, long week.  Lots of good.  Lots of bad.  We fight.  I snip.  I apologize.  We butt heads.  We talk.  I cry.  We laugh.  We cuddle in bed and then fall asleep.

The next day, it happens all again.  I just want to sleep all day.  Can I please just sleep all day?  I don’t want to be a human today.  I want to sit in the corner and stare at the wall.  Also.  I want to stop having frizzy hair that breaks if you look at it wrong, and brittle nails that do the same.  My back locks up and my neck goes stiff on me.  I find patches of dry skin on my feet that look like this:

My back will.not.stop.itching.  It itches in an insane way.  Sometimes, it feels like the skin is trying to crawl off of my body.  I don’t blame it.  The other day, I scratched it with a ruler, absently, while thinking about the curtain tiebacks I wanted to install.  Today, looking at my back in the mirror, I noticed that I had scratched long rivets into my back at some point, probably with the ruler.  I didn’t even realize it.  That’s how bad it itches.

On the days when I can actually get out of the house (like Monday, thank you, Alli!) things feel better.  The motto is, “Movement in Sunshine.”  It seems to help with the Depression Symptoms.  But the lump in my throat.  That choking feeling.  And that world.  On my shoulders. Oy.

Please help me, Mrs. Endocrinologist.  And tell me this paper you sent that says, “payment in full is due at time of service” was just a mean joke you like to play.  Please?

Oh, look.  I just found my matches.  Wanna meet me in the front yard, my friends?  Bring your marshmallows.

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Haik’use me, your thyroid’s F’D up, lady.

The levels of my
Thyroid Antibodies are
Insanely high, yo.

 A quick update on my thyroid labwork.  I finally got a nurse on the phone a couple of days ago.  She told me a few things that aren’t so awesome.

First of all, a bit of history: My levels have, in the past, been skewed such that the THS (which supresses your thyroid) was low… meaning my thyroid was actually running faster than it’s supposed to.  Before anyone gets all jealous (that b*tch had built-in weight loss hormones!) it was not enough to make me lose weight.  (You’ll remember, I was told, ”It’s not bad enough for us to medicate yet.”) It was just enough to make me feel like supremo crap – nervous, tired, moody, and anxiety prone.  That has been the case whenever I had it checked from 2005 up until now. 

Also, thyroid antibodies were detected at such levels that I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.  That basically means that my body created an army to take out my thyroid, as if it were a foreign body, and is regularly attacking and mutilating the poor thing. As such, I have Goiter – a swollen, hurting, sad, whiny, crying thyroid that is just screaming out – “Pweease, pweease, stop hoorting me!”  I regularly feel like someone is choking me, and it’s hard to swallow sometimes.  *whine, moan, cry*

So, onto the current events.

I finally got my nurse on the phone, and she says, “Your thyroid hormones are normal.”

At first, you would think this is good news, right?  Ahh, grasshopper, but no.  Because what that means is that the “hyper” phase has now switched and the hormone level is heading in the other direction.  And good folks, what that means is that before long I’ll enter the “true” phase of hypothyroidism. 

But the fun continues.

“Your thyroid antibodies are incredibly high.  So much so that Dr. Crowe wants you to go see an Endocrinologist.”

How high are we talking, people?

There are 2 measured antibodies.

TPO - Normal Range: 0 – 34, My Result: 216
Anti-Thyroglobulin – Normal Range: 0 – 40, My Result: 849

And apparently, when your thyroid is taking a beating from an antibody level that high, it’s enough to cause the symptoms I’m experiencing (depression, fatigue, loss of libido, dry skin, brittle nails, weight gain….), even if the other hormones measure “normal.” 

Well, butter my biscuit.

So, no relief for me yet.  I’m on the waiting list for the best Endocrinologist in town.  At some point, I’ll get an appointment, and more tests will need to be done (and paid for – with what? my bellybutton lint?)… and maybe one day, I’ll get some medicine to help me feel better and be happy.

Maybe one day.

And hopefully we won’t have to sell Braden on the black market to afford all of this.

(In China, of course, where boys fetch more… what? So I’ve done my research….)

Go see my face.