A New Tension Tamer

I reported to the oncology office this morning to have more blood drawn, and then I headed over to Erica's for physical therapy. I wasn't my usual positive, upbeat, rose-colored glasses, Pollyanna, cheerful self. I know the thyroid thing isn't a big deal, and I know it could be worse, but when it comes to my health, someday soon I would like to be able to replace, "It could be worse..." with "It couldn't be better!" While physical therapy is her stated occupation, Erica's just as proficient at the mental therapy. She listened patiently while I filled her in on the latest medical news. I also gave her a completely unbiased update from the home front where the entire Gibson family is adjusting to Bo's return to work. She sent me on my way with some good advice and a great big hug.

I finally listened to the message that Dr. P left yesterday afternoon, and it made me feel much better. Dr. P mentioned that one of the thyroid tests was a "smidge low, just a teeny bit low." The endocrinologist she called thinks it is just a smidge low because the pituitary gland that affects all the other glands in my body may have slowed down as a result of all of the treatment I received. They wanted to do a few more tests to see if they could "boost me along." I am hoping "boost me along" means something more temporary in nature than "quick fix" ended up meaning. She did say that everything else looked really, really good. It couldn't be better!

I also received two e-mails from two women who had read my blog and both reported having been diagnosed with low thyroid. One of them is in my "support group" and is a recent young cancer survivor who was diagnosed post-treatment. That makes me wonder how common this ailment may be following radiation and chemo... The other is a friend from high school who was diagnosed ten years ago after the birth of her second child. She writes:

"Low thyroid is no big deal. And the medication, truly, is not even a medicine. It is the same substance that your body should be making, but isn't because of the low thyroid. I coincidentally just had a conversation with a doctor about this 2 weeks ago. He REPEATEDLY pointed out that he doesn't even consider thyroid medication to be a true medication because it is literally the same substance produced by your body. You'll probably get a script for synthroid or levoxyl. One pill, every morning, on an empty stomach with a glass of water. The doctor did tell me that it is very important to take on an empty stomach with only water, because the dosages for thyroid medicine are crazy low- they're written in micro grams. So it's important to make sure your body is getting its best chance at absorbing all of the medication since it really is such a tiny amount.

Seriously, I don't even consider myself to have any kind of "illness" and I've been taking levoxyl for over 10 years. It is really no big deal. Don't worry yourself one bit about it! As your doctor said, it's just one of those things. It happens, not because of anything you've done or not done, but just because sometimes things don't work as good as they could. Consider yourself lucky, if this is the problem, that it is something so benign and easily fixed!!

I appreciated their outreach. By the end of the day, Pollyanna was back, and the world was again rose (not pink!)

Thursday is usually yoga day, but Joy had to take a couple of weeks off, so we didn't have class tonight. I have been going with two friends, Krissy and Kim. We all agreed that we couldn't possibly go another week without some way of releasing tension, so we found an alternative to yoga for this evening... kickbox aerobics! Talk about tension release! It felt so good to kick and punch the targets. (Next time I am leaving my boobs at home. They were getting all lopsided as I was punching and kicking.) It would appear that I am carrying around some anger and aggression of which I wasn't previously aware. I love my yoga, and I will continue my weekly practice, but I am also going to regularly attend the kickbox aerobics. The combination of the two will either give me a sense of balance or a split personality!