Dear Thyroid^TM

We love change; change is good and always begets more change. Damn, change 3 times in the same sentence, time for a vocabulary lesson, Schwartz. Moving the story along, we have some super exciting and wonderful updates to Dear Thyroid.

Liz Schau—has stepped down as Editor-In-Chief of Dear Thyroid and into Editor, Nutritional Health. We’re very excited about this. Liz’s passion is nutrition and teaching us everything she’s learned about how to improve the quality of our lives, manage our symptoms through nutrition and challenging us to try new things. Additionally, Liz she has some delightful and insightful things planned for How To Kick Your Thyroid’s Ass.

Sarah Downing—has stepped in; she’s part of our thyamily, as Editor, Research & Awareness. We’re super excited about having her on board. Not only will Sarah be writing a column that speaks to a kaleidoscope of thyroid patient issues, she’ll be writing about other things and asking our thyamily about topics you would like to see covered. Additionally, Sarah will be working on creating awareness for thyroid diseases and thyroid cancers, as well as helping us manifest more local “Dear Thyroid meet-ups”. Speaking of, if you haven’t added your location and email address to the forums please do!

Christina Hutten—has stepped in to work on Community Outreach and connecting thyroid patients with each other, as well as connecting Dear Thyroid with other communities and bloggers to share their stories of advocacy and experiences.

Robyn Davis Hahn—is still our resident Editor-In-Chief, Health Care and we’re super happy to have her.

We have big plans in 2010 and lots of thylicious goodies coming down the pike.

Welcome aboard Sarah and Christina! Congratulations Liz

Love,

Katie

Thyrants for the Week

Facebook/Twitter

Ana Prpic: I don’t know which is worse, for weeks I was sleeping 9,10, 11 hours and still was tired, past few days I sleep 5 or 6 hours and have so much trouble falling asleep. It’s both sad and funny

Anita Roberts: I’m all over the damn place right now. Last week it was heart palpasaurus, exhaustion and lotsa sleeping, including naps, hair fall. This week it’s fitful sleep, tight throat, rough skin, joint pain. CRAP!! And I was doing so well. Guess my Hashi’s is on the attack again. Pisses me off. I’ve lost weight tho. Weird.

Kathleen Taylor: my focus is terrible. I can’t even focus on one thing at a time, never mind more than that

Christinah84: Having one of my slo-mo days. Everything seems to take forever and I constantly forget what I was about to do.

ARTIBILITY: Ok…here goes. I hate when I am freezing cold… and it is 75. I hate when my hair falls out & I have somewhere to go. OK it 4 now

Glandside Adventures

@HypoGirl of HypoGirl.com has created a wonderful podcast, her first, chronicling her experiences with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. In her podcast she covers symptoms, her feelings related to her symptoms and fears regarding her future. You must give it a listen! We’re very proud of the girl.

@Kairol, Thyroid Cancer Patient and Patient Advocate, and author of “Everything Changes”, is doing a book reading and happy hour in San Francisco co-sponsored by “I’m Too Young for This”. It’s going to be a glandarific time! If you live in the Bay Area, you simply must head over and meet Kairol. Here are the details.

We’re resurrecting an oldie but a goody later on today, “Marco Thylo”, written by Katie Schwartz and Joanna Isbill. Stay tuned, more dish coming from the Gland Canyon later.

In case you missed “Why We Write Letters To Our Thyroids” this morning, give it a read and let us know what you think. We hope to see more letters and literary things from you in the coming weeks!

Love,

Us

Are you a new inductee into the Jacked Thyroid Club? Gosh, you must be itching and burning like a yeast infection to know what your immediate future holds, right?!

When American Express coined the phrase “Membership has its benefits”, they weren’t kidding.

Dealing with the hordes of endocrinologists you’ll go through; in a year, a few years, or several years, regardless of frequency, is all doable as long as you remember that your endolicious diva or stud muffin is always right. S/he knows your body far better than you ever will. By accepting that off the bat, you’ll be off to a chipper start. Their astute knowledge of the endocrine system far outweighs yours.  Why you’ll feel stupid at every turn, thyroid induced, and by your endocringeologists. Fortunately, it’s a cumulative gift that keeps on giving.

Don’t thank us yet, we’re just getting started.

Katie is going to share the benefits from the hyperspective, so all you hyperellas out there, get a notepad because you sure as shit won’t remember any of this. 

1. That bone deep fatigue you feel no matter how many hours you sleep, you’re imagining it. It’s not real, similar to Howard Cosell’s toupee. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up needing one, too, depending on how much hair you lose. Oh, darn it, I’m giving all the goodies away.  
2. Let’s talk diarrhea, or more to the point, sacred interconnectedness between your rectum and your porcelain goddess. Thylovers, it’s far more meaningful than you ever dreamed possible, this unique brand of marital or partner bliss; why it’s what we all strive for – to bond on this level. Your anus will keep you on the run, eliminating the need for a Blackberry or an iPhone to manage your schedule. The answers to where you’ll need to be all reside within your pucker pellet (talk about a great savings, that’s $3-500 in your pocket).   
3. Whether you’re a tweener (pre-teen), teenager, or a 20-60 something, the hand tremors and muscle weakness will be so thyrocious at times, you’ll think you have Parkinson’s or MS. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, though. Sure, those are autoimmune diseases, but it’s not like you have them. You just have a silly little thyroid problem. A snip here, a pill there, some radioactivity elsewhere and wah-la, you’re healed. Stop kvetching and keep on shaking!  
4. Hearts, like brains, are overrated. Vital shmital. Dozens of heart palpitations every 60-seconds, shortness of breath and a speedy heart rate is a brighter and healthier start to a gal’s day than a cup a’ Joe; plus, it’s cheaper. At the end of the week, I bet you’ll have saved at least $20. Money you would’ve spent on a latte, a cappuccino or a simple large drip. Treat yourself; spend it on something frivolous, like an automated blood pressure machine.  
5. Feeling enraged, homicidal, suicidal, schizophrenic, delusional, paranoid, bipolar-ee, is all part of your goal to work up to thyroid psychoses. If you achieve that, you can kill anyone, including yourself, and get away with it, guilt free.  
6. You’ll either blow up like a sphere, or in my case a Jew x 4 and end up living in oversized clothing. Or, if you’re truly blessed, you’ll be anorexic enough to wear a size 0.  What fun!
7. Say you plan lunch with a friend. During the course of the conversation, if you find yourself asking, “What did I just say” 3-minutes into the conversation, and “What did you say” 3-minutes later, and if you ask “What were we talking about” once you’re alone 30-minutes later, followed by “Did I go out to lunch today” 60-minutes later, guess what, you’ve got thymentia™. Bravo!  
8. Should you live in an area that’s suffering from a cruel and unforgiving drought, pat yourself on the back. You’ll be able to make a difference in so many people’s lives. Just getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom will yield enough perspiration to fill a stream, a pond, or a water well.  

There’s a bevy of other hyperlicious symptoms you can look forward to that we’ll pass along in the future. We just didn’t feel it was appropriate to overwhelm you with the biggies.

–

Liz has a pretty good grasp on all things hypo.  Trust us, she knows it all firsthand.  You can’t make this shit up. 

1.  Your skin color will oscillate between a florescent yellow and a stark pale white, which, either way, will make people think you’re strung out (which is even more amplified the day after getting blood work when you have massive bruises on your arms).
2. Your hair might change color (or thickness, or you may lose most of it completely) and people will ask why you dyed it that unflattering shade (or why you styled it like that).  As if you had the choice.  
3. You will gain weight and others will try to console you with something like, “You have a thyroid problem?  Now everything makes sense”, which is a sort of nice way of calling you fat.   
4. Your body will start playing tricks on you, for example, being sleepy when you have to be awake, and being so awake when you are finally allowed to sleep.  
5. You will never be able to finish a damn sentence because ideas will vaporize in thin air, right before your eyes; your brain won’t be able to retrieve the most basic words, which will make everyone think English isn’t really your first language.  
6. Your vagina will stop working.  If anyone starts asking questions, just say you’re asexual and always have been.  
7. You can try to read a newspaper or book or article, but trust me, eventually you’ll just start thinking about how sleepy you really are, or how your vagina stopped working.  
8. Your phlebotomist will know you by name.  
9. You will know what a phlebotomist is.  
10. You will shit a brick and probably cry like a little idiot (I always do) when you find someone else who knows anything about your disease, or better yet, has it themselves.   
11. You will shake your head at Oprah Winfrey. 
12. Your bladder will be the size of a penny.  You will be familiar with every public restroom from here to BFE.  
13. If you’re really fucking lucky, your body will break out in the worst case of hives known to man and your entire back, stomach, arms, legs, and face will itch and burn, especially as you are trying to fall asleep (impossible). 
14. Your heart might start racing all erratic and so fast like it’s gonna pop out your chest, and then you’ll get all confused/excited because maybe your vagina is actually starting to work again!  But an EKG will prove it was just your thyroid being an asshole and blood wasn’t rushing anywhere else, actually. 

 WELCOME ABOARD and good luck to ya.

Love,

Dear Thyroid™

As a new addition to Dear Thyroid, we’re introducing a weekly post called Thyrant™ of the Day; a compiled posting to go live on Saturdays that will contain all of the entries we’ve received from the previous six days. We’ll solicit your thyrants™ all week long from:

• Twitter

•Facebook Page

•Facebook Group

• Email

In 100 words or less, we want your rants, as many as you wish, about how you’re feeling in that very moment about your thyroid disease and how it’s affecting you. It can be what you dealt with last week, yesterday, or what you’re dealing with today — something you just need to get off your chest, or something that’s difficult to express to the other people in your life; or your rant can be something broader — parts of your thyroid story as a whole. Because, let’s face it: sometimes we aren’t in the mood to write a full letter to our thyroids and these snippets can be just as healing and cathartic. We will post as follows:

Tweets will be posted as @YourName rantarific rant

Facebook notes will be posted as @Facebook (Nick)name rantalicious rant

Email notes will be posted as @(Nick)name (NO EMAIL ADDRESS, NO real names. Protecting your privacy is of the utmost important to us) rantarella rants

There is no limit on how many Thyrants™ of The Day you can send in, so keep ‘em coming and if you haven’t had a chance to submit a full letter yet, use this as an opportunity to get your feet wet. We love, love, love reading what you send in!

Note: Please include your name or nickname that you wish to be used when submitting via Facebook and email.