Hannibal in the Alps
Feb. 7th, 2016 22:44![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillWell, on the plus side, my thyroid issues seem to have resolved. I woke up spontaneously at 8 this morning, after 8.5 hours of sleep, and felt rested and capable. I'm having fewer and fewer low-energy days, and I don't have the crippling fatigue I had earlier. My thyroid gland is still larger than it used to be, but it appears to be functioning now.
Yay for doctors, right? Except I solved this one on my own, with a hunch -- I started eating iodized salt, sometimes in quantity. Two weeks later, all my thyroid-based symptoms have cleared up. That says to me that my preference for kosher salt gave me a nice case of goiter, something which my doctor didn't even ask questions for (does any doctor ask about salt intake, or what kind of salt? These days, with the proliferation of sea salt and kosher salt, they should.) I don't know whether my thyroid gland will shrink again (I haven't looked that up) but at least I don't feel like I need thyroxine stat.
On the minus side, my vision problems persist. I took a glance at the MRI images this morning, long enough to establish that there's nothing visibly weird around my pituitary on the usual axis. I'll poke around a little more to look for anything else, and to look at other axes, but my theory of a pituitary tumor or cyst is probably a bust. I'll ask my doc what the other possibilities are; I need an appointment with an optometrist first, but I think after that's done I'll see him. My impairment is not diminishing, I'm just compensating better... even so, I hit the wall today and ended up barely able to focus/comprehend anything. I could navigate, just like you can if you're seriously nearsighted and don't have your glasses on, but making sense of anything smaller than furniture was pretty much out of the question. I'm a little better now, good enough to read and write if I'm patient (muscle memory while typing helps a lot), but it's not going away.
It's really difficult to cope with this kind of disability, especially when most people don't know yet; I was put on the spot today when an old family friend asked what I was doing "to stay out of trouble", and I couldn't find an answer. I'm overwhelmed by a combination of reactions: I don't want to make them feel bad that I'm not doing well, I don't want their pity, and it's exhausting to pretend that nothing's wrong all the time. If I answer "I'd rather not talk about it", they're blindsided by the fact that they stepped on what is apparently a sensitive subject with an innocuous question, without even knowing why. I felt bad that I couldn't interact a little more with someone who was obviously pleased to see me, but I felt like if I did try, I would just break down crying in the middle of everything, and that's no good either.
The hostess at the party was actually way more helpful -- she didn't get in my face, and though we chatted about why I'm not driving long distances and the extent of my difficulties, she didn't make suggestions or do the appalled "oh I'm so sorry" thing. What she did do, a couple of times during the evening, was ask explicitly if there was anything she could do to help me. I told her no, but I appreciated the gesture, and I hope I communicated that.
I'm looking forward to my therapy appointment Tuesday, and I'm very glad I set those up. I need to get some of this off my chest, and vent some of what I'm feeling right now... mixed in with the sheer frustration is a great deal of fear, but also a great deal of anger. I'm not used to that kind of reaction, as I first started experiencing it about seven years ago and it hasn't been triggered often since, and it would be nice to have a bit of a steadying hand available when I'm coping with it.
One thing is for sure: I'm dug in and I'm going to fight like hell for as long as I have somebody in the medical establishment who will listen. If the tests keep coming back normal, then they're not running the right tests, and I'll yell and jump up and down until they find the right ones. Nobody's gaslighting me or shelving me this time, and until I get some answers about what the hell has crippled my vision, I'm going to keep at it. I guess that's where the anger comes in handy. :)
One thing I do have faith in is my ability to heal from most things, assuming I have the proper assistance when needed -- I healed in great time after my tonsils were taken out (after most of a year of near-constant infections), and I healed the cumulative damage of a couple of decades of inflammatory disease in just a few years once I started getting regular bodywork. If I have a physical impairment of some kind, even if it needs surgery, I'll recover better than before. If I've got neurological damage, I'll reroute and grow new synapses to replace the damage until I'm good as new. I have the family mutant healing factor, and by damn I'm going to put myself back together, no matter what anybody says my chances are.
Yay for doctors, right? Except I solved this one on my own, with a hunch -- I started eating iodized salt, sometimes in quantity. Two weeks later, all my thyroid-based symptoms have cleared up. That says to me that my preference for kosher salt gave me a nice case of goiter, something which my doctor didn't even ask questions for (does any doctor ask about salt intake, or what kind of salt? These days, with the proliferation of sea salt and kosher salt, they should.) I don't know whether my thyroid gland will shrink again (I haven't looked that up) but at least I don't feel like I need thyroxine stat.
On the minus side, my vision problems persist. I took a glance at the MRI images this morning, long enough to establish that there's nothing visibly weird around my pituitary on the usual axis. I'll poke around a little more to look for anything else, and to look at other axes, but my theory of a pituitary tumor or cyst is probably a bust. I'll ask my doc what the other possibilities are; I need an appointment with an optometrist first, but I think after that's done I'll see him. My impairment is not diminishing, I'm just compensating better... even so, I hit the wall today and ended up barely able to focus/comprehend anything. I could navigate, just like you can if you're seriously nearsighted and don't have your glasses on, but making sense of anything smaller than furniture was pretty much out of the question. I'm a little better now, good enough to read and write if I'm patient (muscle memory while typing helps a lot), but it's not going away.
It's really difficult to cope with this kind of disability, especially when most people don't know yet; I was put on the spot today when an old family friend asked what I was doing "to stay out of trouble", and I couldn't find an answer. I'm overwhelmed by a combination of reactions: I don't want to make them feel bad that I'm not doing well, I don't want their pity, and it's exhausting to pretend that nothing's wrong all the time. If I answer "I'd rather not talk about it", they're blindsided by the fact that they stepped on what is apparently a sensitive subject with an innocuous question, without even knowing why. I felt bad that I couldn't interact a little more with someone who was obviously pleased to see me, but I felt like if I did try, I would just break down crying in the middle of everything, and that's no good either.
The hostess at the party was actually way more helpful -- she didn't get in my face, and though we chatted about why I'm not driving long distances and the extent of my difficulties, she didn't make suggestions or do the appalled "oh I'm so sorry" thing. What she did do, a couple of times during the evening, was ask explicitly if there was anything she could do to help me. I told her no, but I appreciated the gesture, and I hope I communicated that.
I'm looking forward to my therapy appointment Tuesday, and I'm very glad I set those up. I need to get some of this off my chest, and vent some of what I'm feeling right now... mixed in with the sheer frustration is a great deal of fear, but also a great deal of anger. I'm not used to that kind of reaction, as I first started experiencing it about seven years ago and it hasn't been triggered often since, and it would be nice to have a bit of a steadying hand available when I'm coping with it.
One thing is for sure: I'm dug in and I'm going to fight like hell for as long as I have somebody in the medical establishment who will listen. If the tests keep coming back normal, then they're not running the right tests, and I'll yell and jump up and down until they find the right ones. Nobody's gaslighting me or shelving me this time, and until I get some answers about what the hell has crippled my vision, I'm going to keep at it. I guess that's where the anger comes in handy. :)
One thing I do have faith in is my ability to heal from most things, assuming I have the proper assistance when needed -- I healed in great time after my tonsils were taken out (after most of a year of near-constant infections), and I healed the cumulative damage of a couple of decades of inflammatory disease in just a few years once I started getting regular bodywork. If I have a physical impairment of some kind, even if it needs surgery, I'll recover better than before. If I've got neurological damage, I'll reroute and grow new synapses to replace the damage until I'm good as new. I have the family mutant healing factor, and by damn I'm going to put myself back together, no matter what anybody says my chances are.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-11 05:24 (UTC)