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Thyroid Awareness Challenge
We, as a community have pushed ourselves out of the thyroid closet in numerous ways: Wearing My Disease On My Sleeve, every Dear Thyroid letter we write to our thyroids, our Thyrants, and other literary things. We have committed ourselves to community outreach for offline support via telephone and in person. We’ve worked with other thyroid bloggers, participated in Patients for a Moment, the blog carnival, and we’re all supporting Wings of Hope as they race for a cure for thyroid cancers.
In case you haven’t noticed, ahem, we all have rather strong opinions that we aren’t afraid to debate, share and run with. Each member of this community demonstrates fearlessness in ways that I am in constant awe of.
I am calling upon each of us to bring in 2010 with a thybang to create awareness for a disease that is the step child of the endocrine system. I receive hundreds of emails from people monthly too afraid to speak up on our site or our forums about their disease and who need support – our thyamily.
The Thyroid Awareness Challenge:
- Tell 10 people about a thyroid, where it is and what it does
- Of those 10, if they have a thyroid disorder or know somebody who has one, let’s ask them to join our forums and share their stories with us. This disease is terribly isolating, let’s un-isolate them.
- Invite them to write a Dear Thyroid letter and to join us on Facebook and Twitter
- Make sure each person with a thyroid disorder knows that they aren’t alone.
- Send in a paragraph of your findings by Saturday, January 2nd and we will post them on Sunday, January 3rd.
I know we can do this. I believe in our thymunnity. I believe that together we can invoke more change. What do you say, are you with me?
Finally, if you haven’t joined the forums, please do. Share your stories and get involved. Hit the suggestion box for topics you’d like to see posted. The more we speak up and out, the less alone we feel.
Love,
Katie
Tags: do you know what a thyroid does, do you know where a thyroid is, thyroid autoimmune diseases awareness, Thyroid awareness, thyroid cancers awareness, thyroid diseases awareness, thyroid disorders awareness
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8 Responses to “Thyroid Awareness Challenge”
Leave a Reply to Jacqueline
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Whenever I think someone I know might want to know about their thyroid/low thyroid function, I usually send them one of the thyroid articles from Women to Women (okay, so this only really works for my female friends/family)… My fave is this one on “Eating to Support Your Thyroid” — http://www.womentowomen.com/hypothyroidism/foods-naturalthyroidhealth.aspx
I will be more than happy to now add DearThyroid links — especially to the forums. The idea of coming across an instant community of people dealing with the same thing is extremely important (even if they just lurk for a while ;-).
Hi Jacqueline;
I love that you have a resource already, that is fantastic! My hope is that we get people with a thyroid issue talking about how they feel about their disease and how it affects them. The result, I hope, is not feeling so alone and less closeted, that’s why I suggested we use the forums and/or the website.
Exactly, totally agreed, lurking is better than feeling isolated and alone. Knowing there are others out there like us, that’s a perk, to be sure.
Even educating people who don’t know what a thyroid is about what it is and what it does is a great challenge, in my opinion. Maybe we can get people talking.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by katieschwartz: #Thyroid Awareness Challenge, are you in? http://bit.ly/7aKE8R…
I started….results on Sunday or Monday!
still a little confused as to where to post these comments-excuse me, please, for not being able to easily navigate all this newness-I chock it up to not growing up in the computer age and undiagnosed ADD ( a term I’ve given to my impatience and irritability)
Anyhoo: you all can probably guess by now that I’m not too shy in vocalizing how crappy or good I’m feeling. I’m not afraid to let the good times and bad times show. I didn’t realize how this impacted my husband until he came back from the dentists’ office and had found new “converts” for me to get in touch with-then he found me more new converts at city hall and thru friends at work- all people with thyroid disease that he shared my story with and how I’d found great strength thru sites such as Dear Thyroid and how all these people wanted to know the names of where I’d found my solace and strength…it does pay to bitch. Some of these people had been treated for years and never felt well and via my husband actually listening to me, he was able to share with them that it could get better if they got educated
Robyn;
You did?! AWESOME! Can’t wait to see your findings.
xo
k
Bee – First of all, you’re doing great, navigating beautifully.
Second – That is an incredible story. I am so glad that you’re husband listens and supports you, and, and, and has introduced you to other thyroidians.
I agree – Education, education, education.
Keep venting/ranting and being your fabulous BEEself.
xo
I was told this disease was “rare”. Ok, sure….2 people from my church that are friends with each other that are friends with me have problems with it (one is a cancer survivor), my best friend Janet, has it (cancer survivor), my Mom’s husband was just diagnosed with Hashi’s at 48, his older brother got his thyroid removed at 12 due to a tumor, 5 people who worked in my SAME department had trouble…2 were cancer survivors. My husband’s niece has nodules, I was diagnosed at 40 with Hashi’s. According to this, at least 1 out of 3 people I know has something wrong with their thyroid. When will people realize that it is not rare, and it is REAL! Almost all of these people mentioned suffered in silence until I was open about my illness. Some told me that they were ashamed to have it!
Thank you for your site and I don’t know where I would be without it.