October 13, 2008
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Too Much Information?
I’ve not been blogging. I’ve been busy. I’ve been worried. About my health. About my finances, my county’s finances, the world’s finances. About the toxic social repercussions of Facebook and pop-culture’s massive abuse of irony. About the election. About the environment. About the world, generally, you know, crumbling. My health seemed like the easiest thing to fix, so I focused on that.
In July I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, although I had no symptoms aside from not ovulating.
Recently, I was talking over rye and gingers with my best friend Bryan.
“So, what’s new?” he asked.
I answered in my June Cleaver voice: “Well, I’m barren!”
We laughed ’till it hurt, but Bryan knows my secret heart. For the first time ever, Shaun and I just started to get to the point where a fetus would have been anything other than a total disaster. In fact, if a little one joined us, (s)he would be very welcome. Even when we were paranoid back seat teenagers, we always thought that having a kid someday was a fetching idea. This fall, someday seems to have found us; we are relatively confident that we’d be able to nurture another little human’s identity and well-being while still supporting our own. Shaun and I know how we fit in this world, or at least know how we want to and are well on our way. We like the idea of our funny little family. A lot. Is this maternal instinct? No. Its more logic-based. My material instinct is a lot mushier and totally spoils any attempt at a cool public persona. If any of you have ever seen me interact with my little brothers, you know what I’m talking about.Anyhow, it was totally irritating that the minute that thought enters my mind, my womb decided to throw a hissy fit. Not that my life would be unfulfilled if I missed the mommy train, but I was sincerely fearful of what it would mean for my long-term health if I was indeed out of functional girl-hormones at 26. My doctor wanted to set me on a path of crazy, lifelong synthetic hormones. The thought of that made me sick. I sought the help of acupuncture and a holistic medicine woman.
After a long consultation and over the course of two appointments, the holistic medicine woman hooked me up with a bottle dropper of an herb blend, liquid seaweed, cold spoonfuls of Cod Liver Oil, whole-food vitamins, a jar of fermented beet juice, and recipe for a breakfast shake made of berries, green power and whey. I sip her prescribed loose-leaf raspberry tea thrice daily. There is a bottle of Chinese herb pills on my kitchen shelf called Woman’s Precious. I pretend to be Gollam when I take them. I’ve also been seeing a lovely acupuncture man every month. I don’t fully understand what it is that he does, but I leave feeling like a million bucks.
My research into hypothyroidism told me that if I take my temperature in the morning over the course of my treatment, I could gauge how it was working. People with hypothyroidism tend to have a waking temperature that is hovers around 95/96. As my treatment progressed, I happily recorded my temperature raise to a totally respectable 98.6. And this weekend, my uterus finally did its lady thing. Excluding a tiny handful of minor pregnancy scares over the years, I’ve never been happy to get my period before. It was totally weird. Like, “YAY! I’M HEALTHY!”
Its funny the things you take for granted. I’ve started to pay more attention lately. Functional muscles, for instance. I’m super happy to have them. Running, biking, swimming, hiking: it all just wouldn’t be the same without them, you know? And I’ve gotten used to how things are.
In other news, I wrote a poem today. I’m a totally lame poet, but I only do it for fun. As far as I can tell, bad poetry is pretty harmless. So if my health problems haven’t given you enough of a distraction from the global financial crisis, feel free to read it. If you copy it and turn it in to your Comp teacher: I feel really bad for you.Cherry Festival
by meWe want to ride The Zipper.
Again! Again!We rattle dangerously in our junkyard cage.
Skinny thighs slam against steel lap bars. I accidentally bite my tongue.
You’re older and breathless.
I’m whip-lashed. My mouth looks like a worm.At the end, we tumble out.
Again? Again.
We want to ride The Zipper.
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How are you distracting yourself? How’s your health?
Comments (11)
I am so cheered at the idea of you guys having a little one! That would be such a joy.
Worry has a way of squeezing the body either out of or into action. You have a great sense of humor and tenacity like nobody else I know. It seems a matter of time.
Your poem hits a chord of my youth. My younger sister and I once went on a coaster called the Geminii and at the time it was a record breaker. We both nearly vomited but we got in line over and over. She said, “I will never stop shaking from the Geminii!” And every once in a while I leave a message to ask if she is still shaking. Of course she is.
Work is a great distraction and a rewarding one. It seems like all the other distractions for me are ones that I want to be distracted from. The world at large pretty much mirrors the local and household interests. But I am not down. I am looking into changing my name back to the maiden one. That’s distracting. I am kind of trying to wind up all the loose unpleasant ends so that in Oh9 things are calmer and less troublesome.
Oh dear, I’ve aleady taken my english requirements…too bad I would have totally turned that in.
Oh it’s exciting that you guys are trying for a baby. Good luck!
The temperature taking thing is a good way to figure out when you are going to ovulate but I had never heard anything about temperature in relation to thyroid function. Learn something new every day!
@orientalrats - Since no medication or course of treatment is “one-size-fits-all” for something as delicate as the thyroid, taking your temperature is a good way for you to monitor your response to the treatment. In fact, the medical community is in pretty solid agreement that a woman’s recorded temperature over the course of a week is a better indicator of thyroid issues than the blood tests that they do. (Some ladies are riddled with symptoms and have negative blood tests, but it is found that they have a weak thyroid when their temperature is dutifully recorded.) But you have to take your temp when you first wake up in the morning, before you get out of bed. This will tell you your “basal temperature,” which means “temperature at rest.” If your thyroid hormone production is low, you’ll wake with a dead woman’s temperature. Mine was 96. But over my three months of treatment, saw it raise gradually. This month, the medicine woman tweaked my herb mix and I saw my temp skyrocket right to 98.6 and hold steady.
@TheSecretLifeOfPandas - When people say they are “trying” it always gives me the willies. My sister-in-law once cracked a joke that her and her husband were in “breeding season,” which totally grossed me out. I prefer to think that I’ve just got a solid understanding of reproductive biology and a laissez-faire approach to preventing it. All the herbs and stuff are for my health, which will be of good consequence for the fetus, but of better consequence to me. That hypothyroidism stuff is nothing to mess around with. I never want to have symptoms; they are really dreadful for ladies.
@chicagoartgirl23 - ha ha. that’s funny. I guess I didn’t really think about it. now I’m a little creeped out. ha. I googled hypothyroidism and the symptoms are terrible. Yeah take everything you need to in order to keep that at bay.
You know, I really do think there is reason to hope. Hope for so much. Perhaps when all the peripheral reasons for worry are more calm, things inside of us all will relax a bit and who knows? It seems like that mind set would allow for the cells to hope themselves. I think they will have reason.
what are the toxic social repercussions of facebook? too much like high school revisited (which I fear, but still dip my toes into the water), or something else?
in other words, I’m glad your health has rebounded. best wishes for a successful mommy train someday soon.
I’m distracting myself by living my small suburban life – decorating shamelessly and exuberantly for Halloween, rekindling old friendships that were lost in the shuffle of a once-cluttered suburban life. Ah, the poetry.
@MagnoliaMama - Thanks for reading! And happy Halloween decorating!
I’m thinking up a way to write a full on blog essay about the toxic social repercussions of Faceache. In a nut shell, my issues are this:
Personal identity–unfettered by societal expectations/pressure–is a hard won treasure. Genuine confidence is similarly hard to find; what I encounter most in this world is not the basal, steady glow of true confidence but a brassy, presentational parody. I consider my pursuit for these treasures a lifelong one entailing a constant conscious to approach the world with a curious heart and a commitment to exploration and acceptance. It is a hard journey. Most people avoid it all together, I think. Facebook just makes it easy to invent a cardboard cut-out of yourself and I think lots of people mistake that for personal identity and confidence. It encourages users to “play for a crowd.” I’m under the impression that you can’t find what you’re really made of if you are forever performing for some body else.
So its not that FaceAche is responsible for all this. Rather, it exasterbates a lazy human tendency. The reason why I fear societies where true identity/personal confidence is weak: Group Think. It freaks me out. And if people don’t have strong roots in who they are in this world, they get swept up, Nazi-style.
That said, I’ve got a FaceBook. I wanted to check it out, to see what all the fuss was about. And I really like tagging my peeps in pictures.
I’m sorry to hear about your health issues. Hypothyroidism sounds like no picnic. I am sure that your holistic approach and your extraordinarily healthy lifestyle will help you fight this. Congratulations on getting your period! (I got a chuckle out of the pregnancy scare thing–been there before.)
I happen to like Facebook. Didn’t think I would–but I love it as a way to communicate with friends and post pictures and such. Before Scrabulous went away, it was an addiction.
@mydogischelsea - I like face ache too! Especially with so many pals across the ocean and in different states. I just worry about things…my mind needs to shut up.