DEAR THYROID^TM

Why should you write a Dear Thyroid Letter; a letter to your thyroid or thyroidectomized self? Well, I’ll tell you why. We spend so much time talking about our glands, that we never have an opportunity to speak directly to them. This is that. When you write to your thyroid or thyroidectomized gland, it is time to pause and reflect, to express exactly how you feel about what your thyroid has stolen from you or gifted you. Not only is there catharsis in writing to your gland, as a community, we learn from YOU about your disease and how your disease has affected you. We learn about ourselves and our diseases, even if they differ from yours. We have an ongoing epistolary series about the truth of our respective diseases and how they have ravaged our personal and financial lives, among other things. To date, we have written close to a million words.

Think about that for a minute — a million words expressing hope, sorrow, anger, joy, solitude, gratitude, and so much more. Each word is a treasure. We have millions more to write. Keep writing. Keep submitting letters.

And… The first Dear Thyroid Anthology is coming out in 2010. If you want your letter to be eligible for that book, we need your Dear Thyroid Letters submitted and posted by September 1st.

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Flying With Broken Wings: Desperately Seeking Dr. Jekyll was a wonderful installation that made us really think and examine the difference between a good doctor, a doctor that simply isn’t a fit for us and a doctor that is wrong on too many levels to count.

An excerpt from this week’s column “It concerns me that some people might feel that way when reading Dear Thyroid™ because I know that this is not our intention and I also believe that this is a gross oversimplification. People’s horror stories with their doctors are not always easy to digest, but in many of these cases the patients suffered unacceptable mistreatment and/or misdiagnosis”

If you missed it, check it out! The comments are as inspiring and gritty as the column.

Today’s comment…

Dawn Sibert says:

I’d LOVE to add my awesome Dr. to the DT database, not sure how to do so.

I AM making progress, just more slowly than I’d like, but I was in pretty bad shape at my 1st visit a little over a month ago. I’d spent yrs. with untreated PCOS & Hashi’s, my symptoms go back to my teens. I was also severely anemic, my ferritin was a 4. And had an acute Epstein Barr infection. So it can’t happen fast enough for me, but I’ve improved SO MUCH in a month!

Took my labs to my GP last week, had to see her for a referral for an ingrown toenail. She didn’t know what my PTO antibodies were! She could see that having a 600 in a normal range of 0-34 was really high, but so could I..lol!Of course, this is the one who called my swollen, painful thyroid a FAT ROLL!!!

Thyme For Literary Healing: Do You Know How To Say When? Asked a few questions based on this “I wonder how many of us know how or when to say ‘when’, as in I’ve had enough or I need to put myself first, or if I don’t initiate a time-out for myself, I’ll never gland where I want to go. We have a few questions for you and would love to know your thoughts, opinions and ideas on the topic.”

The responses were magnificent. Today’s comment…

Jen says:

1 Well…working on it. There are times I’m simply having a great time or am too involved, and am not paying attention to what my system is telling me.

2 Um…Yes, usually. And if I don’t, it is sure to tell me.

3 My tendency is to work against them, because I’m a type A. Ambitious, intrigued, so much I want to do, so stopping seems almost criminal. Much of that also doubtless comes from my upbringing; stopping to rest or nap, even if I’m nodding off very obviously, is ‘lazy’ and definitely unproductive, or seems that way. It’s not that I hate to miss things, it is that I hate the idea of missing opportunities to get things done, if that makes sense. Let’s put it this way: if I’m beat but working, I’ll keep working away. If I’m beat and Hubby says, “Let’s go for a walk/visit the town festival” I’m a little more likely to say “No, I’m just exhausted…and still have so much work to do.” Is that bad?

4 I agree with Monica. When exercising, I tend to push till it’s stop or drop unless there’s a time constraint. Even if utterly fatigued afterwards…I have a life to live, a business to run. There is no downtime.

5 Countless.

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Four more days to enter the butterfly paragraph contest. We have a few spaces left. If you want to win this painting, start writing. We want to know how you feel about butterflies post diagnosis. Your paragraph can be as long or as short as you want it to be.

Tags: Comment of the Day, community building, Dear Thyroid, graves disease support, hashimoto's disease support, Health Community, health support community, hyperthyroid support, hypothyroid support, literary community, literary support, thyroid cancer support, thyroid community, thyroid literary community, thyroid support community

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