Hello Dear Thyroidians,

Remember when we wrote about launching Dear Thyroid Forums in the middle of November “Dear Thyroid Forums?! Yes, Dear Thyroid Forums! More Change In The Gland Canyon“.

Thanks to Robyn Hahn Davis‘ and @rambls hard work, the Dear Thyroid Forums are officially LIVE!

Please sign up. The Dear Thyroid Forums are an extension of the Dear Thyroid Website. With the exclusion of religion and politics, and the inclusion of uncensored language and health care issues, we come together in the name of thyroid disease.

The forums allow us to carry on continuing, REAL conversations in an easy to find, searchable format with no space limit!  We can also use this venue to exchange ideas, maybe even debate issues, and share experiences and feelings. Along with the regular rotation of categories, we also hope to have “hot topics”, current events, editorials, and pertinent medical information to discuss.

Our goal is for the forums to evolve and grow into a place that our Dear Thyroid community can call home.  A place where everyone understands, everyone supports, and everyone cares.  How and where that evolution will lead us is totally unscripted, and totally dependent on YOU!

We encourage all thyroid patients and their families to join, for support, healing, a laugh, camaraderie, insight and shared experiences.

Love,

Dear Thyroid

Hot Off The Presses Dear Thyroid Forums Are LIVE is a post from: Dear Thyroid™

Laurie Edwards is the author of “Life Disrupted: Getting Real About Chronic Illness in Your Twenties and Thirties” and blogs “A Chronic Dose.” She’s a chronic illness patient advocate, a gifted and savvy writer and a good kid; the kind of dame you just want to sit down and have coffee with.

Not only does she contend with hypothyroidism, she has other chronic illnesses, rare illnesses. Laurie deals with her illnesses graciously and frankly; irreverently and humorously; diplomatically and wake-the-fuck-edly. We love this about her, of course. She’s so very Dear Thyroid.

In her Thyoliday Blues and Truths post, Laurie talks about her chronic illnesses and how it’s amended her experience of the holidays and her daily life.

Please check her out, she’s quite amazing, approachable and super cool. We think you’ll adore her as much as we do!

Thyoliday Blues And Truths Laurie Edwards is a post from: Dear Thyroid™

Setting: It’s 12:59AM, and the classroom is filling with special needs endocrinologists. (You know the ones who do not provide THE BEST care for their thyroid patients.) It’s time for them to live in their patients’ shoes, even if just for a little while. Thank you for coming to observe the class. You may have some pointers to share with the ’students’ later on.

“Come in, come in. Take your seats, class; we’ll get started as soon as you are all sitting down”

“My, this is a big class!  Well, anyway, Good morning. My name is Sistah Thyresa and I will be your teacher, your guide for this class. I know that it’s very early in the morning, in fact it’s just barely morning, but you are going to be experiencing many things that your patients go through, so get ready, it’s going to be a busy class.

“First of all, let us stand for the Pledge of Thylegiance, “I pledge I don’t hear you…”

What do you mean, you don’t remember the words? Oh, all right, sit down. Let’s work on some math. (Groans in the back of the room)

No moaning back there; get out a pencil and paper. Okay. Little Johnny gets a penny for his allowance starting on Monday, two cents on Tuesday, etc. How much money will he have on the 16th day? On the 21st day?

(Mumbling, muttering, no one is raising their hand with an answer) “Can’t anyone figure this out?! It’s simple math!

Shirley raises her hand, “I have some extra credit; I did a time line all about me”.

“I don’t care about that, Shirley; in fact I don’t want to see it at all. All I care about is what these test scores say, right here (Sistah Thyresa is pointing emphatically to papers on her desk). These test scores say that you are fine! I don’t even know why the heck your here! Sit down!

Mark in the back corner is shivering, raising his hand. “What is it Mark? Oh, you’re cold. Too bad. Go get a sweater from your locker, and come right back. Hurry up!”  (While Mark is cold, other members of the class are sweating bullets)

“John, Lucy, Amy over there, if you’re hot, take off your lab coats, for goodness sake, don’t just sit there sweating like pigs. What am I to do with you?”

“Let’s take a snack break so that I can get my wits about me”.

Take out your snacks. I need to see them. If they contain gluten, dairy, or if they have goitergenic properties, into the waste basket they go.  “How many people have milk and cookies? Uh oh, into the basket they go.”

“Lucy, that raw broccoli and dip looks healthy, but, nope, into the basket. Give me the strawberries young lady. Is that coffee caffeinated, mister?”  (Sister Thyresa writes HOMEWORK on the blackboard)

List 10 foods that are OK for persons with thyroid issues to eat.

Here is your first assignment for homework. Don’t worry there will be more to come. No one leaves this class without learning something and without having to learn more.

“John, why are you tapping your foot like that? Restless legs? Well, why don’t you get up and tap dance for the whole class? That will get out some of your restlessness”

In fact, class, let’s get ready for some ’show and tell’.

(Each student prepares to share something with the class).

“Okay class, we haven’t got all day. Let’s begin. Amy?”

Amy stands and begins to tell the class about her pet beta fish and how it died and made her sad. Sister Thyresa interrupts. “Amy, that’s sad, yes indeed, but enough, we have others to listen to. Thank you, sit down”.

Mark in the back raises his hand, then comes to the front “I participated in a triathlon recently” Sister Thyresa says, “How nice, let’s move on. Sit down”

After a couple more students attempt to participate, but get little response from Sister Thyresa, no one raises their hands anymore. Their long faces give away their feelings.

“Well, why so glum everyone?” asks Sister Thyresa.

“It’s apparent from the looks on your faces that you don’t like the way that I’m conducting this class. What do you want me to say? What more do you want me to do?”

Lucy, speaking quietly, with a little choking sound in her voice responds, “For a teacher, you don’t seem to care much at all about your students”.

Sister Thyresa does not appear aghast or even upset at all. She smiles and nods her head. A+ Lucy. You get it. In just this short time together, you are beginning to understand.”

The other members of the class, a little weary, but wide eyed begin to sit up straighter and listen.

Sister Thyresa takes a chair and sits with her class. “You are doctors. You have learned how to treat, but you have not been taught how to care. You know the terms, the diagnoses, the test scores, but you need to know your patients. You need to CARE about them. Most of all, you need to listen. Validate each of your patients’ concerns. It really doesn’t take that much longer for you. If they know that you care about them as you attempt to care for them. You may not have all the answers, so be honest with them. Explore with your patients. Don’t be afraid to try something new with them. Be patient with your patients. They are persons first.

This class is dismissed. You will have to decide if you pass or fail. That will be determined by you back in your office. Go, and be well.

Thyairy Tale is a post from: Dear Thyroid™

Joanna Isbill blogs “The Eye of the Storm”. If you haven’t read her blog, you simply must. She’s a thyroid cancer patient, a fighter and has an infectiously positive attitude. Let me explain — Of course she hates dealing with thyroid cancer, as much as patients with other thyroid disorders hate dealing with theirs. Joanna is human. When I say “infectiously positive”, I mean that her ability to see the silver lining in a genuine, heartfelt way, is, speaking for myself, an enviable and beautiful trait. I skew the other way times a thousand.

Additionally, she’s brutally honest about having cancer and doesn’t hide from it. Those who are uncomfortable with it, Joanna has no problem tabling it on their behalf, humorously and bravely.

Joanna is adorable, smart, clever, witty and a peach of a dame. You must read her “Thyoliday Blues And Truths” to truly appreciate this one of a kind dame.

Thyoliday Blues And Truths Joanna Isbill is a post from: Dear Thyroid™

Dear ThycoLolly,

I never got a chance to really say goodbye, so I want to take this Opportunity to do so now, never mind that you caused me so many problems over the years.

If I were to write you an thypitaph I think it would go something like this..

ThycoLolly is gone but  never  forgotten.

You left me behind, feeling rotten.

No substitute, no better, no time to cry.

You morphed into a spiritual butterfly.

You are gone now and I have to make do with a poor substitute and Rat bastard doctors that don’t have a clue and don’t really give a shit, I have to fight every inch of the way to get what my body requires.

I am getting there it’s taken sometime but slowly I am getting there.

You see if it hadn’t been for that suspicious nodule you would still be with me..Why I ask myself could they not get a decent sample or a conclusive biopsy saying there was no cancer. I couldn’t take that risk being in the 5% bracket, I had responded well to ATD’s but that goiter was still  there, You weren’t happy I could tell you still gave me symptoms ones I had learned to cope with. Now I knew I wasn’t having a heart attack we decided to beat-box at night, and if anyone asked me was it raining I’d say yes, can you not see that single cloud over there, we had stood under it dripping from the head. Yes you embarrassed me many a time, but you also made me laugh, but why the fuck did you have to go effect my eyes. I could cope to a degree with everything else but not my eyes the windows to my soul,  even the loss of weight was a bonus great having a chiseled jaw line but shit having panda eyes to go with it. looked like something out of return of the zombies. Couldn’t you have just left the eyes alone. I guess if it wasn’t for that we would have not discovered I had Graves Disease in the first place,  TED who the fuck was he, I prefer now to call him GO Because I wanted him gone

Well after 5 FNA’s in 6 months and no local on a large nodule right lobe, nothing was any clearer, Te surgeon said he didn’t want to put me through anymore and I was happy about that.. I didn’t take the decision lightly, I took my time and in the end we had to part ways, just a shame you didn’t have cancer, I think I may have felt better if they had said yes but I felt as if I had you taken away from me for nothing.

All I have to remind me is the scar you left behind, it wasn’t a pretty one either, in the beginning I looked like the bride of Frankenstein’s monster. Now as I caress my scar a reminder of what used to be, I can say I have finally got a fucking neck and didn’t realise how big you’d got.

I miss you, your substitute can never take your place and has caused me even more problems, but I think I am slowly getting there, my eyes are now in the inactive stage of GO.

So this is Farewell ThycoLolly, Au revoir,  Auf Weidersehen Pet…

Your loving Host

Lolly

(Bio)…well I’d tell you my age but then I’d have to kill you after, so lets just say I’m as young as the men I feel, and it’s not the men in my life, but the life in my men. Diagnosed with TED and Graves disease in 05, full TT in 07 been fighting with the health authorities ever since, just to get the right tests and adequate replacement. My philosophy in life… is fight for what you believe in, don’t let the bastards get you down and smile at least 5 times a day. And last but not least knowledge is power.

Thyreaved… Gone, But Never Forgotten is a post from: Dear Thyroid™

If you haven’t met Erin Shea, now would be a mighty fine time to do so. Erin is a fantastic blogger and writer. She also happens to be a Hashimoto’s patient. Her relationship with her disease is as unique is she is, as we all are, of course.

Erin, honestly, and in painstaking detail chronicles how her disease has reshaped her life. She details the ongoing struggles she endures, that each of us endures, trying to fit into our lives as we live side-by-side with a disease we never invited into our lives. Similarly, the battle each of us faces: Do our diseases define us or do we?

Erin goes into great detail about her relationship with food as it pertains to her disease, people’s misconceptions about thyroid disease, and how difficult it is to accept having this disease, and so much more. All of this illuminates how Erin’s life has been impacted by Hashimoto’s on such a personal level.

On that note, I’m going to shut my pie hole and send you on your way to read Erin’s beautiful Thyoliday Blues and Truths Post.

Thyoliday Blues And Truths Erin Shea is a post from: Dear Thyroid™

Dear Thyroid,

I must admit that since you attempted your hostile take over, I have not looked at the world quite the same.  Luckily, I have come to meet others of like disease who realize that venting and laughter *are* the best medicine.  They are also quite a talented and artistic bunch.

I was on my way to work when a song came on the radio–and I realized that so many songs remind me of you and what you have done to me.  So, thyroid, this one’s for you:

(To the tune of Purple Haze)

Jimi Thyndrix is a post from: Dear Thyroid™