Dear Thyroid^TM

Marco Thylo is a thyroid humor column based on the searches Dear Thyroid came up on for the previous month, written by Joanna Isbill and Katie Schwartz. We do fly in some news at the bottom of each post when we have news. So, there’s that.

Joanna Isbill

1. Jokes about the thyroid: We LOVE jokes about the thyroid. You tell. We laugh.

1. 2010 hypothryoid: 2010, the year of the jacked butterfly gland.  It’s only March and we’ve already forgotten all our New Year’s Resolutions. Thank you, thymentia.

1. Any positive outcomes of having your thyroid out?: Is that supposed to be a joke about the thyroid?

1. Bladder torture:  The new torture method of choice. Waterboarding is a thing of the past.

1. Blogspot.com thyroid men:  Male bloggers who dress up like butterflies?  Sweet.  What better way to create awareness for thyroid diseases and cancers?

Katie Schwartz

1. Erotic Signs#II=20: Is that code for creating erotic thyroid porn. Let’s think of thylicious porn titles, shall we? “Pulp Sex Drive-less”, “Swollen Hal”, “On Hairless Pond”. Care to add yours, too?

1. “Whoopi Goldberg”, sneeze, pee, doctor: I haven’t spoken with Whoopi’s people, but if she’s looking for a sneeze and pee doctor, I doubt she’d be posting about it. Oops, I was wrong. Whoopi is speaking out about bladder control issues. BRAVO, GIRL! Can I get a, whoop-whoop?! Bladder control is an issue for millions of women and men. The fact that she’s willing to discuss it; well that’s just fabulous, and gives us the courage to speak up and out about our respective diseases.

1. Blood Backordered for Thyroid: Question… Forgive me, I’m confused. How do you back order blood? “Hey, can I get blood from Jack Brimmer from 20-years ago? I’d like to check his thyroid results? Can you spare a vial?”

1. Broadcast your Ass: Unfortunately, many of us are forced to do so, thanks to thyroid disease. We will continue broadcasting our bold and beautiful asses!

Thylicious News!

Denver Coffee Break Co-Thyvent from 10AM to 4PM in Morse Park. Please click for details. This is an offline meet up co-hosted by Coffee Break and Dear Thyroid, and a wonderful opportunity to connect with other thyroid patients.

Please continue adding your locations to the Dear Thyroid Forums for Local Meet-ups. We have someone joining us who will be coordinating local meet-ups and bringing patients together for offline support. Your patience is greatly appreciated. We are making this happen. And, and, and, you can check out what other patients have said about their meet ups.

Have you submitted your photo for the Dear Thyroid Flickr Pool this month “Reinventing Ourselves“? If not, please do. We’d love your visual story and to know what reinventing yourself means to you.

If you missed Liz’s column today, please check it out. Liz discusses how HTKYA came to be, and the science behind nutrition. Additionally, she discusses myths and misconceptions surrounding how nutrition is perceived by Western medicine. She makes outstanding points and its well worth the read.

Mary Shomon is considering a 3-day thyroid seminar in Tampa with one-on-one thyroid coaching sessions. If you’re interested, please connect with her; this is a terrific thyopportunity!

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Thanks to Joanna Isbill, we’re bringing Marco Thylo back; our thyroid humor column. The name “Marco Thylo” was coined by @HypoGirl.

On the first Saturday of every month, Joanna Isbill and I will be writing Marco Thylo. We’ll be taking the top 10 searches from the previous month and writing our snarky responses. Why? Because life in the Gland Canyon can get a little intense, we need a laugh, a little relief from our thyrama.

Written by Joanna Isbill

Babes taking a piss on poise pads: Are bringing sexy back?

Doctors who ate specialists: Well that explains where all the good endocrinologists have gone.  Dr. Cannibalarella, you are the bane of our existence!

Farmer Wisconsin thyroid:  What, was hell going to freeze over before our endos informed us there is a farmer in Wisconsin growing thyroids?!  And I thought I was going to have to live without a thyroid for the rest of my life.  Darlin’, you just give me a call when it’s harvest time and I’ll shoot up to Wisconsin to pick up my gland.  Now will you have a curbside market, or should I just knock on your front door?

How many years does a thyroid patient leave: Well, sugar britches, that just depends.  If the doctor ate her endocrinologist, she might never come back.  But if our farmer in Wisconsin harvests that crop of thyroids soon, you go ahead and turn the front porch light on and get ready to welcome home your long lost lover.

Glazed and confused my gym partner is a monkey:  Honey, we’re glazed and confused, too, but it’s not because we have monkeys for gym partners.  It’s because many of us spend days at the gym, just think about a Big Mac, and gain ten pounds.  Why don’t you leave the monkey at home with the ganja that you are clearly smoking and invest in a human trainer?  Mm k, pumpkin?

Written by Katie Schwartz

Sweat dripping breasts erotical: What hyperthyroid or Graves’ patient wouldn’t agree: profuse, uncontrollable sweaty breasts to the point of needing to change shirts 3-4 times a day isn’t hot, hot, hot?! Even better when paired with their hearts pounding out of their chests, it sure is erotical. Boy, I tell you, speaking from experience, those days were awesome; why just getting out of bed would yield buckets of sweat, enough to be the envy of any third world country in need of a little H2o. By the way, I hate to be a pain in the ass, but erotical isn’t a word. Erotically and erotic are words.

Ate tuna sandwich thyroid imaging with uptake: Dude, you were allowed to eat during your scan and tuna no less?! Would love the name of your shitendo—def want to pass his/her name along to other patients. Really knows his/her stuff. Must be at the top of their game, yo! Really savvy.

Docs fucking patients: Like this is new?! Shrinks have been bangin’ their patients for years. Not all, just a select few. The ones who really care about their patients overall wellbeing, so sweet, right?

Endo pain every day: In my rectal gland.

Freakish vaginas: Word to the Graves’ girls! That’s right; our snatch packages are riddled in polka dots. Wanna bend me?

Care to add your humorous thyroid touch to this week’s column?

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Next Sunday, How To Kick Your Thyroid’s Ass will be back.

• Heroic: Being heroic does not rest with a patient’s ability to cope with their disease, or accept it, or happily live side-by-side with it. Being honest about it does. Assigning emotions to that is irrelevant, to the extent that whether you’re happy, sad or angry, you’re willing to speak out about it, and that is heroic.
• Bravery: Each person who engaged to discuss: Using clay, if you could mold your disease into a shape, what would it be and why? If you could ask your disease questions, what questions would you ask? and What do you hate most about your disease? and so many others. To share your experience of your disease and how it affects you with other patients is brave. I don’t know if everyone realizes just how courageous it is. So many thyroid patients are in seclusion, ashamed of their symptoms and what their disease has morphed them into. By reaching out to each other, you remind us that we are less alone.
• Sadness: Our respective thyroid diseases and thyroid cancers make us sad, that’s human and that’s real. The idea of: “Turn that frown upside down”, is something I reject with every fiber of my being. That’s not to say that I endorse wallowing in sadness because that doesn’t help either. Sometimes we need to just be sad. The expression of sadness reflects the human condition and sharing that sadness is a beautiful thing.
• Happiness: Many patients feel gratitude and happiness after contending with a diagnosis and enduring the process of thyroid diseases and thyroid cancers. For some patients, their disease redefines the core of their being on such a deep and healing level. This is an awesome, inspiring and exquisite gift, and should be shared as much as every other emotion.
• Humor: Making wise ass cracks about your disease, wearing humorous thyroid t-shirts, writing a funny letter to your thyroid or from your thyroid, and posting on Facebook/Twitter and in the forums, funny comments about a bad endo experience, a creepy ass symptom, or just making us laugh about how you feel, all of it is healing, in my opinion. I refer to my eyes as lady balls (I have Graves Opthalmopathy, how could I not?), my thyroid has made me so fat, my hips are the size of the world wide web and my previous endo’s were so stupid, not cracking jokes at their expense simply isn’t an option.
• Outspokenness: Our glands cause psychiatric disturbances, plain and simple. The emotions we feel overpower us like a hurricane. We can’t always control the rage, or depression or paranoia, et al. Similarly, collectively, we have strong ass opinions and personalities. At Dear Thyroid, everyone and their gland is outspoken. I digress, this is a gift.
• Irreverence: Cursing, cursing, cursing. I love to curse. I was born into a family of 5 siblings and 2 irreverent parents with a dark sense of humor. When we could talk, our parents made sure that we knew the top 5 curse words; fuck, mother fucker, prick, asshole and dick. Each member of this dear community isn’t afraid to curse. You have no idea how much this warms my heart.
• Anger: Being angry about what our diseases have taken from us is a normal, human emotion. Often times, I’ve been the recipient, as we all have, of being told that anger is an inappropriate response and unhealthy to the healing process. Of course this makes my blood boil even more. Within the kaleidescope of human emotions, when was anger omitted, because I never got the memo?! To every patient willing to freely express their anger, I congratulate you and welcome your angry glands.
• Intimacy: Though we’ve never met, we have an intimate relationship with each other. Our glands and glandless selves have stirred an intimacy between us that is so rich, it’s experienced in the text and subtext of our words.
• Connection: With every letter you share and every post you write in the forums, on Facebook and on Twitter, you connect us with each other. By chronicling your disease on Dear Thyroid, we read your words and feel connected to you. I am proud of you for writing — keep writing, don’t stop writing letters to your thyroids or posting about your experience of your disease — you bring us together.

Thank you for being your flawless selves. I hope that 2010 brings more voices, new and old school, writing to their thyroids and connecting with other patients. I hope that we achieve our awareness goals and continue our Dear Thyroid Local Meet ups and Phone Meet ups. I hope that we all continue being proactive, heroic, brave, sad, happy, funny, outspoken, irreverent, angry, intimate and connecting with each other.

Thank you for reminding me that I am more than my disease. Thank you for your unabashed letters, ideas and opinions. Thank you for making me feel like I belong to a community of people who get me and never make me feel like I’m alone.

Thyroid Patient Advocate and renowned Author, Mary Shomon, wrote an article on About.com called “The Top Ten Stories Affecting Thyroid Patients in the Decade from 2000-2009“. This article is a must read, for every thyroid patient, doctor, thyroid community and families of thyroid patients. While there is still work to be done, Mary reminds us how far we’ve come regarding thyroid awareness and how it’s flourished in the past decade–very inspiring. Similarly, Mary empowers patients by encouraging us to continue being proactive regarding our health and how we handle our treatment. I encourage you to read the entire article, it’s thylicious.

Additionally, Mary included Dear Thyroid as a patient advocacy site.  We are so honored and grateful to Mary for including Dear Thyroid (Thank you, Mary Shomon!). As a community, we make up Dear Thyroid. Every single patient is the voice of this site. You are remarkable.

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Whether you  have a thyroid condition or not, you are welcomed at Dear Thyroid. Please feel free to leave comments and share your thoughts with us. We’d love to hear from you

To our American readers, Happy Thygiving. may your thyroids gland calmly in the canyon today.

Before we get started, that sounds so seminaree, please pardon the rather jacked font issues we’re having on the site. I think the site’s hyperthyroid. One day, the font is Georgia, the next it’s Times New Roman. We are in the process of resolving these issues. Kindly give us a few days. Thank you for your patience. My apologies for the inconvenience.

We are still continuing our Dear Thyroid Local Meet Ups. In fact, we’ve added two new cities. The online support and community that we’ve created as a family is outstanding. Offline support has enormous power, too. It brings us closer to each other and makes us feel less alone, evidenced by the Pembroke, MA meet up. Please join us. Email Katie@dearthyroid.com and provide me with your location and email address. I will connect you with Dear Thyroidians in your city. One meet up can lead to monthly meet ups and support groups. How exciting is that?!

We’ve just launched “Wearing My Disease On My Sleeve™“, an endeavor that we believe will further our collective objective, to drag our asses out of the Thyloset, empower ourselves and change the face of thyroid diseases and cancers. I believe in us, and our collective power to invoke change. Who wants in?!

We’ve revised our “About Us” page, which includes our Positioning Statement and our Mission Statement. I digress, please forgive the jacked font and spacing issues, we’re working on it.

We have a very exciting new kind of Meet Up that we’re deploying, created by two of our very own community members, Lolly and Billie. They’ll be sharing with us shortly.

In December, we are launching a really exciting Blog Tour hosted by Dear Thyroid called “Thyoliday Blues and Truths”. We’ll be introducing the community to some kick ass bloggers in the thyroid disease and thyroid cancer communities. If you’re interested in participating, we’d love to have you! Please email katie@dearthyroid.com for details. (Special Thanks to our good friend @leahjones for this thytastic idea.)

Searches to be posted next week. As you can see, lots of change in the Gland Canyon continues, but it’s pretty damn good change, donchya think?

Love,

Me