Some Rights Reserved
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
United States License.
Dear Me, Shortly After Diagnosis
I was dishing with Joanna regarding an essay I had written a few months after I was diagnosed. As a result, we had a conversation about it and came up with an idea:
Let’s go back in time and ask our community to submit literary works they wrote immediately post diagnosis or new works based on memories of that time.
We will be posting ours, and we sure hope that you will submit yours, too. What was so interesting was to see how little, speaking for myself, I knew back then and how much I know now.
Together, we can continue learning from each other through this exercise. Please write, write, write and submit to submissions@dearthyroid.org.
Love,
Katie
Tags: comparing medical knowledge from diagnosis to present day, graves disease blog, hashimoto's blog, post diagnosis knowledge, thyroid cancer blog, thyroid cancer support, thyroid disease blog, Thyroid disease support, thyroid forum, thyroid patients writing letters to themselves immediately after diagnosis
Follow Dear Thyroid on Twitter/@DearThyroid | See our Facebook Page | Become a Fan on Facebook | Join our Facebook Group
You Can Create a Dear Thyroid Profile and share with friends!
Reader Feedback
3 Responses to “Dear Me, Shortly After Diagnosis”
Leave a Reply
Comments are moderated in an effort to control spam. If you have a previously approved Comment, this one should go right through. Thanks for your patience!
My originals are all right here. I kind of like that.
🙂
Amanda
Sounds good gorgeous. You’re still getting some of our dishes as they continue to happen. Thanks for listening to me and loving me.
x
M
I had my blood tested in October ’10. My doctor said my thyroid was “lazy’ and something to check-up on in another 6 weeks. Six weeks later it was at 4.8. Another blood test in January, and it was 5.8. I’ve had radiation to the back of my head for lymphoma in 2007, and probably the reason my thyroid is going kaput.
Doctor called me, and automatically she talked about sending out a perscription for Synthyroid. I was hesitant. I told her I didn’t know if I was going to take anything.
Okay, I am cold all the time, oh well, so I’ve gained weight–I can exercise more— and, yeah, my thinking goes fuzzy, but no one expects me to be a big brain, afterall I am more an conceptual being, a person of ideas. . .
So, I am draggin’ butt a little, that’s what coffee is all about.
A couple of weeks later, I am getting light headed, and I’ve taken a nap. I HAVE NEVER NAPPED!
It took me almost 2 months of going back and forth in my head to finally see that I am not the person I was and I do want more of me back. Back to doing more than just putting one foot in front of the other until it is bedtime. I’ve been on Synthroid for 9 days now, and honsetly not much has changed. I am on a low dose of 50 whateveritis, milligrams, probably? I will have another blood test at the end of March.
My self-image is of a healthy person, full of energy sixteen hours a day, ready to get outside! It has been difficult to understand that I’ve had cancer, chemo, readiation 3 years ago, and major surgery just 3 weeks ago, and at 56, maybe I am not all that young, all that vibrant, all that strong, and I need to reevaluate what my needs are.
The idea of taking a pill everyday is distrubing to me because it does make me someone else. Maybe silly to some folks, but it has altered my own self-image more than the wrinkles, the silver hair, and the shifting body parts.
Then, I know, too that I am a lucky bum! I am doing good. I am doing, loving, cooking, eating. . .
There is too much fun to do and things to talk about, today. Here and “Now”, I am fine.