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I’m Not Crazy, My Thyroid Is… Don’t you See That?!
Dear Thyroid,
I have such a love hate relationship with you. I now know that you have caused me hell for years. All the years of sucking away my energy, leaving me drained. All the days of exercise and diet to no end. All the pills for anxiety and depression. Not to mention the mood swings, cold and headaches. For 10 years they told me there was no problem. I felt that it was all my fault. Then one day you let yourself be known with a little nodule. I was told we would proceed with tests to determine if it was cancer. Cancer? I couldn’t have cancer I was 35, I had 3 small children at home and I was the breadwinner for our family. “Luckily” I was told that if it was cancer it was the “good cancer” – words that still haunt me. This time it wasn’t cancer, it was an active nodule that required a partial thyroidectomy. During surgery they learned that I had severe Hashimoto’s. I wasn’t crazy! I wasn’t imagining the way I felt or the way my body responded (or chose not to respond!)! I had a name for my situation.
The next three years went by with other medical craziness – a kidney stone that required surgery, a gall stone that required removal of my gall bladder and a car accident because a semi-driver just didn’t think that stop sign was for him. And then I started to feel a bit better. I started to get my weight under control. I wasn’t sleeping as much. I am afraid to say it, but I felt good.
Then you flapped your single little wing. My anxiety increased, my sleep was terrible, my patience gone. My routine level check was the next month and I thought for sure this was the end – the Hashimoto’s had killed you, but no my levels were normal. Here we go. I know I don’t feel normal. (Not that I really know what normal is.) Luckily I have an endocrinologist who listens to me. We would do an ultrasound just to check. There it was – another nodule. Not a big one, but suspicious enough for a biopsy. I’d done my homework and I knew this wasn’t good. Everyone assured me it would be nothing, but I knew it was. So, I received my cancer diagnosis the day before the holidays. I heard again that if you have to get cancer, “this is the one to get”. But don’t they understand – I don’t want any cancer.
Surgery is over. I am now preparing for RAI to get any remnants. I am tired, don’t feel like I can think straight, nauseous, and feel like crap. I have three kids to be strong for. I’m still the breadwinner, with my husband taking care of all of us. I hate you thyroid for all the times you’ve made me feel fat, made me have to tell my children I need a nap, made me lose my temper faster than I should. The list goes on and on.
But then I thank you. I thank you because you tried to hard to make me “normal”. I think you grew yourself some active nodules now and then to compensate for your inability to support me. You gave me enough strength to finish a masters program. You gave me enough energy to be the primary caregiver for my disabled father. You gave me 4 pregnancies and three beautiful, healthy, wonderful children. I am still bitter about my loss, but I cannot overlook the blessings I have. And I have learned how to help my children as they become advocates for their health.
Regards,
M.
(bio) I am a happily married mother of 3 (1 miscarriage) diagnosed with Hashimoto’s 3 1/2 years ago and papillary thyroid cancer 3 months ago. Suffering thyroid symptoms for a good 14 years now.
Tags: finding your way through thyroid disease, hashimoto's impact on patients, headaches, misdiagnosis of Hashimoto's, mood swings, nodules thyroid, symptoms of anxiety and depression, thinking thyroid disease is in your head, thyroid cancer, thyroid cancer diagnoses after hashimotos
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7 Responses to “I’m Not Crazy, My Thyroid Is… Don’t you See That?!”
Leave a Reply to Bernadette Reinhorn
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Feel your pain…14 years of a thyroid that wouldn’t play ball and doctors that listened but never heard what I was saying. Finally had my thyroid yanked after the goiters was so large I had trouble breathing. And yes I too heard ‘but its the good one’. Well 1 1/2 years later, RAI update done and follow up 1 year later ‘still clean’. Feel stronger, better and have lost a tremendious amount of weight, finally. Stay strong you’ve made the right decision and will all the better for it.
Hang in there M – I know it’s hard, hell it’s difficult! But you have a life – a family and you can get to normal from here. I’m saying this for myself as much as for you…I don’t know what normal is either, but fight for it. I’m working on it and wish you much love and luck. xoxo
I understand where you are coming from! I had an enlarged thyroid all of my childhood but always had normal levels when they did blood work. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s when I was 16, after a bout of thyroid storm which nearly killed me. I struggled with infertility for years, blamed on my hypothyroidism my doctors told me, suffered a miscarriage, but have 2 beautiful, healthy children. In January of this year after months of bloodwork, ultrasounds, thyroid uptake and scan and biopsy, my results came back suspicious for papillary carcinoma for a large nodule on the front of my thyroid. I had my entire thyroid removed January 27th and found out a week later that it was positive for cancer. In Feb, I found out I was expecting another baby once again. It’s been a roller coaster ride the last few months. My OB doctor doesn’t want me to go through the pregnancy because of everything going on. My endocrinologist said I need to have RAI treatments because of a second nodule that wasn’t biopsied, but came back as an invasive cancer growth on the pathology report, but he is a firm believer in babies being blessings and said the treatment can wait as long as we watch for swollen lymph nodes . I can’t have RAI treatment while pregnant, so we will have to wait until after the delivery. I hate all of this stuff that I’m going through. I just turned 32 a couple of weeks ago and have even dealt with a cancer diagnosis of melanoma while pregnant with my 16 month old son. I am a firm believer in that everything happens for a reason. I am choosing to see the good in all of this, knowing that things were caught and things will be okay and that treatment can wait because of the miracle that we are being blessed with come October.
Good luck with your RAI treatment!
I can’t beleive there is someone out there that feels exactly ad I do and did! I too had hashimotos and didn’t find out until after they took my enti ire thyroid bc of a cancer diagnosis. I have two children and at the time of the diagnosis I was only 27 and husband had just returned from a 14 month deployment in Iraq and my boys were 6 and 3. I had had anxiety attacks for years and was an extreme hypochondriac. I finally had gotten a Dr to listen to me and eventually got my diagnosis after a year of ‘ watching’ a module and various drs…I now am having the biggest struggle of my life with my weight and anxiety and I have two boys now 10 and 7 and I hate that am having all these problems. It effects my work as well as I have had panic attacks with paramedics called and all the embarrassment that comes with that. Anyway I am 4 years out from my papillary carcinoma dianosis and even tho its ‘ the best cancer’ I completely agree with you on your thought that you just don’t want it at all! There are so many emotional and physical thongs that go along with it. But, atleast we are blessed to have caught it in time! Good luck and just know you are NOT alone!
I want to thank everyone who has commented and everyone who has read my letter. Knowing that we are not alone is powerful.
I believe we will all come through this better. It is a struggle and we will be better for the struggle. Along the way, well, we need each other. There are blessings in the every day and definitely blessings in babies!
Thank you,
M.
M., don’t ever forget that there are people, closer than may you think, that really care about you and that you can always count on for support. They’re just as blessed to have you as you are to have them.
~ L.
Ahhhhhh! Grrrrrrr! Sound familier! Nice to know Im not alone and certainly not CRAZY!