Hypothyroidism, I hate you.

This is totally unrelated to anything jewellery, but as it is MY journey, and MY blog, I thought “what the hell” and decided to do a post on this to help me process all this bullshit anyway.

So, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism last Friday, 10th June, 2016. That’s a date that is now firmly embedded into my memory. I’m also severely anaemic. Go me, right?!?

I knew there was something wrong over a year ago when I started to feel really tired. Not just “tired-from-a-long-day” tired, but “I-think-I-might-actually-die” tired. It’s the kind of tired that sleep doesn’t fix. I could sleep for 18 hours, get up for two and then go back to bed because I was so drained. I put it down to stress from my job which at that point wasn’t going well at all because I was taking too much time off, and my boss freaking hated me and I hated everyone.  So, I napped when I could, took more time off, drank more coffee, and just sucked it up until I couldn’t suck it up anymore. Now I realise that none of my issues were stress related, but they were all down to this bloody disease.

Disease. I hate that word. Can we call it an affliction? Condition? Something that sounds a little less….deathly. 

Anyway, I should be relieved. I finally have an answer to why I’m so damn tired all the time, or why my hair is falling out, or why I have awful fluid retention that sees my feet swell so much I can’t wear shoes, or my headaches, muscle cramps, joint pain, dry skin, tummy problems, God awful periods (which increase the amount of blood I lose which in turn makes the anaemia worse, which then makes the tiredness worse!), memory loss…..the symptom list is huge. I did feel like I was losing my mind for the longest time. Between the mood swings and the massive weight gain I just spiralled down further into a depression that was being FED by the hypothyroidism symptoms.

My whole life has to change because of this stupid diagnosis. God, I can’t even have COFFEE anymore because caffeine, sugar and dairy are bad for someone with this stupid disease  affliction…condition….thing. And I’m on lifelong medication which requires constant supervision by my Doctor.  It wasn’t even until I picked up my prescription that I realised this isn’t something you can just throw meds at and be okay. My prescription was for 200 pills. That’s 200 days of taking medication. That’s until December. Every day, until December, then it’ll be off to the Dr for more medication for another 200 days…then another, then another….

So here I am, a fat, asthmatic, anaemic, thyroid dysfunctional 38 year old who now has to live and work around a body that just doesn’t want to get out of bed unless her levels of TSH and iron are normal. I hate this. I want to scream and throw things but I’m so tired I can’t even do that. So here I sit at the computer at 3.27am because even though my body is screaming at me to sleep, my mind is racing. I’m scrolling through websites like “9 foods to avoid when you have hypothyroidism,” “Hypothyroidism: Symptoms and Treatments of Hypothyroid Disease,” “8 Surprising Symptoms of Hypothyroidism,”  (which by the way aren’t so surprising when you have it!) and I’m feeling alone, overwhelmed, and scared.

I’m seeing the Dr again next week and have to have more blood tests. Better get used to being a pin cushion again, huh?
Until next time, friends.