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The Long and Winding Road
Dear Thyroid:
I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately…trying to remember what is was like before you left. You left me when I was pregnant, although you’d been thinking about leaving for years. You were pretty good about hiding your intentions. Sometimes I wonder if you and my doctor were in cahoots. I was so tired and so unhappy and I blame it all on you. It maybe unhealthy to place blame, but it sure makes me feel better.
Even now I blame you. My husband blames you too. Sometimes I still blame me…worry that I may use you as an excuse to be a bitch…not on purpose mind you, but with the world telling me to get over it and that I don’t have cancer anymore…that it was the good cancer. I actually let myself me feel guilty for getting this cancer, like I had a hand in this.
Thyroid, you could have put me in a coma, you could have cost me my little girl’s life. You almost cost me my relationship with my husband, my friends and my family. But most importantly, you cost me my personality and my sanity…you still 7 years later, cause me grief and heart ache and I am stuck with this for the rest of my life. I’m paranoid…I blame you…I’m fat…I blame you…I’m moody…I blame you. I blame you for the loss of me and the person I loved so much. I spent a long time getting me to where I could love myself and you came along and stole it. 5 days in the psychiatric ward because of you and a medical field that knows next to nothing about what it is like to have no thyroid.
I believe Cee Low Green put it best with FUCK YOU!
Charlon Nadine Bruner
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A bit about Charlon: I wrote this article for thyroid cancer canada (thry’vors) in 2007 entitled Courage from Within. It tells my story and how the decision to get pregnant saved my life. You can find me on twitter (@charlonadine).
Tags: Dear Thyroid Letters, letters from thyroid cancer survivors, thyroid cancer, thyroid cancer blog, thyroid cancer forum, thyroid cancer literary site, thyroid cancer support, thyroid cancer survivors, thyroid causing moodiness and paranoia, thyroid psychoses, thyroid related psychiatric issues, thyroid weight gain
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8 Responses to “The Long and Winding Road”
Leave a Reply to susan
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I think you covered it all for me…..
My circumstances are slightly different but I share the same emotions!!!
After being told it’s the good cancer I actually felt I had to tell myself and others it was no big deal! I never gave myself the chance to be upset about having thyroid cancer. I didn’t think I had the right to! Now its going on a little over a year later and having first whole body scan next week to see if there has been a recurrence of cancer, my levels still aren’t regulated, have so many hypothyroid symptoms….but I have to remember I have the good cancer!
Jeanne, I know exactly what you’re going through. No one has the right to tell you how to feel or react. You have every right to feel any damn way you want! Good luck with the body scan.
*raises glass* Here’s to a life time of no recurrence of cancer! Cheers!
~charlon
UGH the body scan…… I’m going on my second one this summer… For me it was not that bad. It was just the three days of isolation in the hospital made me go psycho!!!!! I only took a book and started going nuts!!! If you have a hospital stay like I did take lots of puzzles, a book and a few magazines to keep yourself busy. Anything disposable you can throw away afterwards. That was one tip I never recieved and wish I had! Good luck on your body scan!
You said it completely! I am so tired of people telling me it is the “good cancer”….noone talks about the after effects…the misery while trying to find the right dose to make one feel normal again! Thank you for saying what is on my mind & heart!
Hello. Wow, the last part of your letter could have been writtn by me. I finally found out who i truly was, then getting thyroid disease stole my life. It took my health, my looks, my sanity, my marriage, every relationship i had, my freedom ( haven’t left my house in a very long time ), and my will to live. I have absolutely nothing left. Been to so many doctors, i’ve lost count, and like you, have been in a psych ward many times for being suicidal. It’s funny how nobody understands that i never felt that way until i got thyroid disease, yet they say the two things are not related. So sad 🙁 This disease may not be fatal, but it’s definitely a death sentence for me.
I wish you the best. Take care.
I love you more than anything in this world next to our child. When the doctor told us you had cancer I died for a second. One of the happiest and scariest times of my life you’re pregnant and gonna die, or so I thought. You fought and you won. You have no idea how proud I am of you for that. Being married to someone with thyroid cancer has its good days and its bad days but even on the worst days, the days when we want to kill each other over some tiny thing that makes absolutely no sense, I thank what ever power that be that gave you the “good cancer” because you are still here with me. People can say unless you have it you don’t understand but I don’t quite agree with that. For one second (that felt like a lifetime for me) when I heard those words YOU HAVE CANCER, a lifetime flashed before my eyes and with out you in it there was no reason to carry on. If I could take it from you I would, if there was a way I would do it today. So I will take the bad days and cherish the good ones because I love you always; good or bad; richer poorer; sickness and health till death do us part and that will not be for a long, long time.
Your loving husband