AWK! What is wrong with you, Myrtle? UGH. I AM going to get back to this. I AM! [Keep reminding me of that, will you please?]
I wrote this two days ago. I should have posted here here as well. It is so amazing to me, really, more and more as each days passes. But, then, I've just jumped ahead of myself!
REJOICE WITH ME: I was talking with a friend tonight and thought it was probably time to post this. A month ago, I wrote a very desperate, slightly pathetic message to one of my doctors begging her to go back to my original dose of thyroid medication.
On it, my lab numbers are very low, slightly *below* the normal range. I keep telling her that I am a bottom hugger, just ask my cardiologist how I stay near my pacemaker low setting. But for 11 months, she has been tweaking my dose lower and lower by mixing two doses until I just went full time on the next lower dose.
I have been so miserable in so many ways, but I have been wildly upset about this weight gain and not yet knowing that Trileptal was the culprit, just like gabapentin, I wanted to change back to my beloved .112 dose. Because she believes in treating the whole person and not just the lab numbers, my doctor sent in a prescription for me instead of making me wait until I see her in January.
A week ago, I started waking up. By that I mean, I started getting back to my old miserable self, not the extra wretchedly miserable self that I have become with all the super-extra exhaustion, the fogginess on top of the brain fog, and the darkness I just didn't talk about.
I am no longer napping three times a day.
I can follow through on tasks.
I am brighter.
I was talking about it with my therapist on Tuesday and she teased me, "The sky's bluer. The grass greener." I won't print my reply. But darn her, the starry sky Friday night was so beautiful to me that I stood and stared at it a while before I went in to be reunited with my beloved Fluffernutter after my hospice visit!
Friday, I was even more awake. My GP noticed and was happy for me whilst I talked about it. Today, I smiled more than I have in eons.
The thing is, the way I track my thyroid is skin, hair, nails, and weight. Never has it been exhaustion, mental fog, and darkness. But man! MAN! I cannot get over just now much more energy I have compared to being out like a light much of the day, despite wanting to get things done. And my, oh my have I ever been productive in the past week. You'd be amazed! Not, mind you, have I tackled the master bath cold faucet yet.
It is easier to cope with the pain and the nausea and cognitive dysfunction and fainting and the blood sugar crashes and ... and ... and all the rest if you are not falling asleep all the time, if you are not so distracted and foggy, and if there isn't a pall of darkness draped over your very being. I have noticed that if I do not nap, then I sleep 12-13 hours. So, it is six in one and a half-dozen in another on whether it is better to nap or stay awake.
Writing is still my hardest task. [Don't laugh.] I'm talking writing about anything other than my life, although sometimes that is impossible, too. I've been trying to get four pieces done all week and have gotten nowhere. Time is running out on me.
Yet ... I am rejoicing. I have ME back. The old miserable me that went missing some time after we started mucking about with my thyroid medication. You'd better bet that I am going to hold on to that with both fists from now on.
Still, I am giving thanks and praise for having discovered a cure for the excessive exhaustion and the rest when all I wanted was the pain of dry skin to end and my nails to stop peeling and to finally get back to losing weight.
I am giving thanks and praise, also, because I have a doctor who trusts me when I say that another dose of medication was better for me even though the lab report differs.
I am giving thanks and praise, greatly, because I try to live fully the life I have between my flares of wretchedness, when the misery is manageable, endurable. I haven't been doing that for months and months and months. I haven't been doing that since I received the body blow of the news about my lungs ... right about the time the first big change in my thyroid medication was also kicking in for me.
I am giving thanks and praise, finally, because the program I want to start is no longer so wildly incredulous because I am significantly more able to be at the ready to help those whom I would like to help.
I am blessed. I am not always good at sharing when I am awed by a blessing, wondering if it is real or not, even after my GP says that it is in this case. I am more of a Doubter than Thomas ever was. But I do know that I am blessed.
Rejoice with me. At least those of you who suffer with me and pray for me ... now is your turn to rejoice with me!
