"We're Not Going to Take It..."

If I were to have written this yesterday, you would have gotten a much more positive post. I felt a lot better yesterday, and my spirits were up. My day began with a great phone call from my brother announcing the birth of his new son Haven Dee Johnson. He was born at 8 lbs, and the ounces escape my mind. Deanna is doing great and goes down in the rockstar hall of fame for doing everything all-natural and then acting like she'd just gone on an afternoon stroll rather then labor all night long. He's a beautiful little baby and it's been amazing to watch my brother and his wife experience parenthood for the first time. I also would have told you I was having a great day because the bloodwork came back with my TSH levels above 50, HALLELUIAH! Thus giving me and end in the sight to this previously endless nightmare. On Monday I will take my radioactive pill and on Wednesday I will get my full body scan, at which point they will tell me if I can start taking my meds again (PLEASE OH PLEASE).

But, it's no longer yesterday, it's today, and it's been a bad day. It's actually been a bad week and I've had it! I was watching Vh1's 100 best songs of the 80's, adn Twisted Sister's "We're Not Going to Take It" came on. That's my theme song right now. I went to work this morning, sat down in my chair and knew immediately that I had made a mistake even thinking that I was suited to be there that day. I can't even describe to you the alien sense of fatigue and lethargia that comes without a thyroid. It's like that feeling you have right after you have a surgery, when they wake you up, and despite all your best efforts, you can't stay awake. You're body can't move and you can barely focus your eyes for a minute. It's like that, only not QUITE so extreme. You can move, you can communicate, you can function, but very poorly, and slowly. So when my kids at work arrived and immediately started to tear my room apart at full volume (like they do every morning), it took everything I had not to vomit, or start crying, or both simultaneously. Not to mention the stupid cold that I'm battling. But I'm tough dammit, I don't quit, I'm not giving up...

Boss: "Teresa, can I get you anything?"

Teresa: (Quivering chin, squeaky voice, everyone watching) "Can I go home please?"

I'm pathetic. But I knew I needed to go because for the first time, of all the times I've called in sick, I didn't have that small pain of guilt, thinking that maybe I was just being a pansy and that I really could be working. I knew that I had no business being there. I went straight to my mom's house without calling Glenn, found the first unoccupied bed, (because crawling into an occupied one at my parent's house would be awkward), and slept, deeply, without even realizing I was sleeping. It was completely dreamless, painless, unconsequential sleep. You know that feeling you get after you've had a gluttony nap, where you know you completely overdid it? That achy, grouchy, groggy, I'm not going to have a normal sleeping pattern again feeling? I didn't have that one bit. I slept from 11 to 4, went home, sat on the couch to watch Arrested Development, and now it's 8:30 and I can't wait to go to bed.

I HATE not having a thyroid. I HATE radioactive iodine treatment, and the next person that tells me how easy and simple and wonderful it is, is getting punched in the face. Taking a pill is easy, having your internal motor turned off for three weeks is not. Crying hysterically because the lab didn't have your order and you have to go back after work is not normal, nor is it fun. Feeling like you're moving in slow motion while the world around you is moving on super orbit speed, is so overwhelming. Trying to type all of these descriptions is redundant and making me really tired, so I'm going to bed.

See you on Wednesday.