Some Rights Reserved
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
United States License.
From One Thyroid To Another, Please Do Me This One Favor, Please
Dear Thymon, My Thyroid:
Thanks for your letter to me. I didn’t know how you felt. Maybe we can call a truce. I said MAYBE!
I really need you to do something for me first. You need to communicate with another thyroid for me. No fooling around. You need to have a serious talk with my niece’s thyroid. You need to find out why it’s doing what it’s doing to her and make it stop.
Yesterday morning at breakfast, my niece told me that she has been having mood swings and flipping out for no reason. The doctor told her she needs to find an endocrinologist because she has a thyroid problem. She’s scared. Very scared. Thymon, she’s only 17! She has the rest of her life ahead of her. She’s a beautiful girl in her senior year of high school and she wants to be a nurse. She can’t have any memory fogs. How will she study? What if she fails a crucial test?, Please tell her thyroid not to mess her up like you did to me.
I go to bed every night thinking “Why me?” Now I know why. I can use my experience to tell my niece that it isn’t the end of the world and introduce her to others that can help her. It broke my heart when we were talking about it and her mom and dad said that when her mood swings start, she pleads with them “Help me!” They said that they don’t know how to. I know what it feels like to suffer alone with this. When it first started with me, I suffered alone. But, thanks to Mary Shomon and finding this site through her site, I now know that I am not alone. My husband also has someone else in his life that will now believe what he is going through when he deals with my mood swings and everything.
I know my niece had always loved me, but she would look at me like I was from another planet sometimes when I did and said crazy things, and I had my mood swings. To be fair to her, I guess I just seemed crazy. Now this shared condition has brought us closer together in one day than we had been since my husband first introduced me to his family 10 years ago.
Again, Thymon, thanks is in order. I really mean it this time. I really have a huge favor to ask of you. Please have a chat with her thyroid and tell it not to be too hard on her right now. She has a full life ahead of her. At least let it wait until she hits 30 like when it happened to me. She needs to be able to realize her dreams.
She needs to be able to deal with her last year of high school, college and the beginning of her life. She doesn’t need someone like you to mess her up. 17 is too young to feel as if you are 100 years old. If you can’t, I understand. I just am glad that she has someone who can help her now when she cries out for help.
I gave her Mary Shomon’s site and this wonderful site and promised her that together we share something that no one else understands, except for a few select people and that whenever she wanted to talk about it, there would always be someone around, even if she just needed someone to hold her when she cried. I told her that together we would embark on a world that was sad, happy, ugly, beautiful, sane, crazy and so weird that it was almost unreal.
I hugged her, gave her a kiss, said “Hold on to my hand; close your eyes and just jump.” She took my hand, and I told her “Just don’t let go. I’m with you all the way.” As we walked out of the restaurant into the sun, my heart swelled. It was a new beginning for the both of us.
Love,
Jackie
(Bio) “Hi. My name is Jackie, and I am 40 years old. My life ended as I knew it, the Spring I turned 30. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Doctors insisted I was crazy. I almost believed them. Thank you, Dear Thyroid for your site. I hope this letter I write will finally allow me to accept my condition…
Tags: Dear Thyroid, Dear Thyroid Letters, letters to thyroids from patients, Thyroid disease support, thyroid patients writing, thyroids writing to patients
Follow Dear Thyroid on Twitter/@DearThyroid | See our Facebook Page | Become a Fan on Facebook | Join our Facebook Group
You Can Create a Dear Thyroid Profile and share with friends!
Reader Feedback
15 Responses to “From One Thyroid To Another, Please Do Me This One Favor, Please”
Leave a Reply to Deb
Comments are moderated in an effort to control spam. If you have a previously approved Comment, this one should go right through. Thanks for your patience!
I so understand feeling all alone in this,my family thinks I’m going nuts…My poor husband trys so hard to understand,bless him,but until your in my shoes (our shoes) no one understands.Kodos to you for taking your neice’s hand! Love and support are what this is all about.And to your neice..its not the end,its just the long way around things…Good Luck to you both and you are not alone!!!
Hi Jackie..Your niece is very lucky to have such a fine auntie as you. I don’t think there are finer teachers/mentors for those in need than those who have ‘been there..done it’ types! Hopefully your neice will be able to bypass many of the unfortunate obstacles many of we thyromaniacs endured for so long.I hope your “Thymon” is settling down and behaving instead of playing”Thymon Thays” with you! All the best for a healthy ,happy and balanced Thyroid ,be well,Deb
Excuse me a moment while I blow my nose and wipe a tear from my eye…How beautiful for you to finally have a “knowing” of how your thyroid struggles have prepared you to help your niece—even tho I’m sure you would’ve rather taught her about other life lessons, just knowing she’ll have you to turn to will ease her journey—and now you can also show her how life isn’t over BECAUSE of this disease, it’s just different
Jackie,
I hope your Thymon can communicate with your nieces, you’re in a great position to guide her through this and get her to a better place.
It’s good to have a Family/Friend support network, even though half the time they haven’t got a clue what you are going on about, let alone what you are going on about yourself.. it’s a secret world you know a secret code that only other Thycomaniacs would understand.
I do hope with the help and support she will be able to continue her studies and go on to greater things, her life may never be the same as it was before, but will certainly be a challenge.
I remember those Graves rages a women possessed is not the word, good job I had someone who knew I would be prone to these outbursts and was able to get a handle on it and we would laugh about it after. I found that taking myself away for just a short time helped if not rationalise what it was I was raging about, like were the heck did I put this, were are my…what was I trying to say, help me out here what has an apple to do with the price of petrol?…You know, just to have someone who understand goes a long way..At least she is not alone with this Thyfliction
Your words and letter touched my heart… I had to borrow Bees hanky I promise to wash it and send it back in the post.
Thank you for posting it was a lovely letter.
Jackie, I’m so glad that your niece has you. Don’t you just want to rock her in a rocking chair, pat her head and make it all go away. While you can’t, you are just the support she needs. We’ll help too. Keep writing. We’re here.
Our misfortunes can tell the tale in ways that others cannot. How unfortunate that you had to play the thyroid crazy game ~ how fortunate for your niece that you did, and can walk with her through what lies ahead.
I’m stand in agreement with you – thyroid to thyroid not now, not at this time, maybe not ever, let this get in the way of her hopes and her dreams, not at this age, these milestones.
I know you will hold her hand, walk beside her, catch her when she falls, lead where she is unable to go, and get her to that good place, controlled place, happy place she needs to be.
It’s really sad to hear of this happening in a teenager. According to my wife, and other mothers of teenage girls, adolescence is just one big mood swing anyway. Not to piss anyone off here. But if this was hard to cope with in my 50’s, I really don’t want to think about how confusing it could be at age 17.
Your neice is lucky to have you as a resource. One thought I have as a parent is that although I love bitching about things here, your niece needs to know that life can go on with thyroid problems. She can still do all those things she wants to do. With the right doctor treatment can be successful. Brain fog is not inevitable. And although being young is confusing, it also gives her more resilience.
Most of the time I can pass for normal now. (At least I think it’s normal. I have trouble with that concept and it has nothing to do with brain fog.) So can you. So can your neice.
Good luck
Zari
Excellent letter. Love the illustration too.
Zari, I agree, it must be more confusing to someone in their teens. At that age, I didn’t yet have a grasp of what normal was.
Best of luck and health to everyone!