DEAR THYROID^TM

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about our Dear Thyroid Letters. It also occurred to me that I haven’t actually written one in about two-years. I wrote so many; we’re talking hundreds of letters to my thyroid that, I realized it’s high time I wrote and submit one, too. We need a gland to heart, which dovetails beautifully into this…

As you know, we’re gearing up to launch the first annual Dear Thyroid Anthology, which will be comprised of already published Dear Thyroid Letters on our website since we launched. Before publishing any of your letters in print, we will be contacting you for expressed written permission.

That being said, we have some SUPER EXCITING things that will be included in the Dear Thyroid Anthology, which we will be announcing by the end of the summer.

If you want to be considered for the Dear Thyroid™ Anthology, please be sure to get those letters in. We begin compiling and organizing in September.

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The Silent Dance, written by Kathy, is one of the most poetic and interesting Dear Thyroid Letters. The notion of paralleling disease with various types of dancing is just BRILLIANT. For reals, you have got to read her letter and send some love in comments.

Excerpt: “You spin and you leap out of control, dancing the dance as the music takes hold.  The bass pounds rapid and the cymbals clang sharp, why oh why, must we dance this dance?  I beg the conductor to bring back the joy, but he does not hear the frantic, placid melody of this horrid noise.”

Comment of the day…

amy says:

Kathy, what a clever way to describe Hashi’s. Sometimes a beautiful and graceful waltz. Other times a very hectic and crazy-out of control dance. It is unfortunate we have to dance to this tune… Right now my “dance” is pretty good and I am so thankful for that! I hope yours is, too!

Bringing Sexy Out of the Thyloset: A Dear Thyroid Blog Tour

Excerpt: “During the month of September, Dear Thyroid is going on a blog tour to promote awareness for thyroid cancer. For this blog tour, we’ll be asking bloggers to write a post on their own blog that addresses some questions provided by Dear Thyroid regarding thyroid cancer and thyroid cancer awareness. On the day we are scheduled to make a “stop” at your blog, Dear Thyroid will post a brief description of your blog along with a link from our website to yours.”

If you haven’t read the post or submitted your blog for the Blog Tour, please do! We are going to raise some serious awareness for thyroid cancer! Whether you’re a survivor or a patient, please join us for this awarenesspalooza!

comment of the day…

Becky says:

I would really like to be a part of this – although I don’t yet have a blog set up, and I actually just got diagnosed five days ago. But if there’s some short info you can give me to kind of get me up to speed, I will totally be there with bells on.

Thyme For Literary Healing: The Emotional Expense Of Disease

Excerpt: “We’ve discussed the financial hardships and repercussions of disease, but what about the emotional toll disease takes. It seems to me that the cost is far too high. Relationships are forever altered or destroyed. Our personal lives are turned inside out and upside down. Finding our way through a prism riddled in anguish, heartache and anger is seemingly impossible.”

The conversation taking place is — well, I’m speechless and in awe. I urge you to jump in and go for it.

Comment of the day…

Donna says:

1. My disease has most definately come with an emotional price tag from diagnosis until now almost 4 years later.

2. I have endured years of not understanding my symptoms so therefore lived in denial. I took klonopin for anxiety from diagnosis until a few months ago. I attributed my need for numbing myself to keeping the peace to alleviate stress. It helped but at a price because I allowed myself to be bullied and did not remember who I was before cancer. It made me weak in the head.

3. No, I never imagined the emotional price I would pay and I’m sad to say that I could have been better about understanding others with chronic illness. Emotional indeed!

4. Yes, my family and friends have paid a price emotionally as well. If I am emotionally distraught how can that not make them emotional as well? It goes hand in hand. Sad, but true.

5. Yes, I am in the process of reinventing myself because I stopped numbing myself with anxiety meds and realized that I have been swinging hyper to hypo for years without really realizing it which was not pretty. I am in the process of not accepting this as my destiny. I want to live a full and joyful life to the best of my ability and be something more than I currently am.

Please don’t think I am judging anxiety meds, they were a necessity for me to still function with cancer but after I should have weaned myself off and I would have been better able to recognize the hypo/hyper symptoms instead of just ignoring them and accepting my health as it was.

We can all get to a better place, maybe not a perfect place but a better place

–NEWS AND UPDATES—

For the month of August, we thought it would be so much fun, if we all wrote letters from our thyroids or thyroidectomized glands to ourselves. What are those thyroids thinking? What are they doing? What do they have to say to us? Please submit your letters to submissions@dearthyroid.org.

Thank you all so much for your incredible cards, letters, postcards and gifts for “B”. They will be mailed to “B” this week. YOU’RE SO AMAZING. When it comes to rallying, nobody beats this community. A million thanks for your generosity, love and kindness.

We have chosen the FIRST BLOG to spotlight for the month of August. Drum roll, please… HypoGirl! HypoGirl’s blog, in words and podcasts chronicles her experience of Hashimoto’s, and more. We’re going to be asking her a couple of questions about her blog and the impetus for Hypogirl.com. Stay tuned.

If you’d like to have your blog added to the Thyroid blog Roll and/or spotlighted, please email us and tell us all about your thylicious read.

Love,

Katie

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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