Next month will mark 9 years since the car accident that would put into motion a series of events that led to the unearthing of my thyroid cancer.
Every day I wake up grateful to be a survivor and it took me a long time to be able to talk about this experience. This, is the first time that I’m writing about it.
Pain and suffering is not something that can be compared and there is no right or wrong way to deal with a serious illness, but I wish that I had known 9 years ago what I know today about hypothyroidism.
The thyroid gland is a tiny gland in your neck that takes the iodine found in food and converts it into thyroid hormones. These hormones (T3 and T4) are released into the blood stream and are responsible for the regulation of your body’s metabolism. Every single cell in your body depends on these hormones and for your pituitary gland and thyroid gland to work in harmony to produce them.
If there are too little or too many thyroid hormones, then chaos ensues: mood swings, body temperature and body weight fluctuations, depression, anxiety, hair loss, constipation, exhaustion. When I’m at my worst I experience these symptoms sometimes all at once. At my worst, I feel like a prisoner in my own body- nothing is in my control. Some days I feel like I’m sinking into a bottomless pit and I’ll never be able to get out- it’s the worst form of depression and it’s so hard to remind myself at those times that this is not my true self, it’s just my hormones.
Thankfully throughout these long nine years those times have become fewer and farther in between. I’ve learned that just like in so many things in life: balance is the key. When my thyroid hormones are balanced it makes all the difference in the world.
I’ve just been through a period of months of imbalance and I’m delighted to share that for the first time in a long time, in the past weeks I have been feeling like myself again. I have the vitality to do all of the things that I love, like travel with the love of my life, I have the drive to be creative and I have the courage to pursue my dreams. I even have the energy to do the things that I don’t always love, like go to work without feeling the poop emoji all the time and to workout until I’m drenched in sweat.
Living without a thyroid has taught me that you have to take the good with the bad and after nine years of living with thyroid disease I’ve become ever more grateful for my health. I’m grateful that most days I’m not only happy, but I feel healthy. On the other hand, when I’m not feeling so great I’ve learned to better deal with those times by staying grounded in the mentality that the feeling and the pain and the emotional roller coaster is only temporary and there is a light (and kisses from my love, and probably also an adventure planned) at the end of the tunnel.
Paulina’s Passport 