A Double Life

At times I feel like I have two completely disjointed lives.  There's the happy life of the girl in her mid-twenties with an amazing husband, a gorgeous house, a good job, and fantastic friends.  And then there's the other side, with the stress of an illness and everything that comes with it, like dealing with medication problems and more "probably nothing" test results.  It's sometimes hard to deal with how I am simultaneously thrilled with life and pissed off at it at the same time.

A few weeks ago, I had my blood work done to check my TSH again, and was extremely frustrated to find out that it hadn't gone down at all since the last dose change.  (That sentence sums up several days of stress and angry conversations with the nurses for leaving voicemails on the wrong phone number, some productive discussions with my endo, and an expensive repeat blood draw at an out of network lab to verify that my levels are in fact really that bad.)  I had been on a generic form of Synthroid, and although that apparently works fine for most people, there is a chance that it doesn't work as well for me.  (Side note - everyone else in my support group says that their endos won't let them go on generic because it doesn't work as well ... so I had wanted to ask about that anyway.)  So we are trying out the brand name stuff to see if my body handles it differently.  Another couple weeks until we find that out.

I also had my first follow-up ultrasound post-thyroidectomy.  The treatment plan was that every ~6 months, I'll have a thyroid ultrasound with lymph node mapping done to monitor the results of surgery and RAI and make sure nothing is coming back.  I figured that since this was the first one, it would just be to set a baseline and the only thing I would hear back from my doctor was "we'll see what it looks like in 6 months".  Of course, that would be much too simple.  Instead, he told me that there are a couple things that aren't exactly suspicious but we want to keep an eye on them and check them again in 4 months instead of 6.  There's apparently a small lymph node whose shape isn't normal and a nodule (probably just scar tissue) where my thyroid used to be.  My doctor reminded me that since the blood work for my antibodies (tumor markers) came back negative (this is good), this is probably not anything to worry about, but given the number of times I've heard that phrase in the last year, it still makes me a little nervous.

I think this dichotomy is my main struggle right now.  I can't spend the next four months worrying about whether or not my ultrasound will come back okay, so I have to push it to the side and ignore it.  It's actually not terribly hard to do that - despite all of my issues, I feel fine, which makes it easy to pretend that the issues aren't there.  But pretending/ignoring then makes it harder to deal with it when the scars (emotional or physical) do show.  I think the problem is that at some level, I still haven't accepted that this is what my life is now.  I'm definitely getting more comfortable with this being a part of who I am, but every now and then the enormity of having to deal with this for the rest of my life is a bit overwhelming. 

The other half of this double life is pretty amazing though.  After dealing with my various injuries and illnesses for most of last year, we're finally getting to do some improvements on our house.  We're getting a fence put in, we're starting to make a landscaping plan, and we're picking out paint colors, and I'm incredibly excited about all of those things.  We had a great time at my sister's wedding a week and a half ago, and *fingers crossed* my best friend might be buying a house in the neighborhood next to ours.  Most of the time, I really can't help but smile.

So although things don't always feel "normal", I feel like I'm moving in a good direction, and that maybe sometime in the not too distant future, I won't feel so much like there are two separate parts to my life.  It's a work in progress :)

Relay Recap

Somehow, Relay For Life was already 4 weeks ago.  Life has been a little bit busy lately, so I'm only just getting around to posting this recap - oops!

It was my first time participating in the event, so I didn't really know what to expect, but let me just say it was a pretty awesome experience.  The weather was absolutely INCREDIBLE, thank goodness, and I had a wonderful time with all my family and friends who came.

That's not to say that everything was perfect.  As far as the whole event goes, there were definitely some things that could have been handled better.  And as far as having a team goes, we certainly learned a lot in our first time out, and we know how to improve for next year.  But the whole event ended up being so significant because I think it was the first time that I really appreciated that people were supporting me.  Not only did our local friends and family join in, but we had family drive up from Philly and a friend take a bus from NY just to be with us.  They made food for the bake sale, walked at all hours of the night, and brought food for the team to eat.  But most importantly, they were there with me, and I was truly touched.

My sister ended up winning the quilt raffle, which is nice, since that means it will be hanging in their house and I'll get to see it from time to time.  And I'll get back to work on my own quilt eventually (some other projects have jumped in line...).  But for now, I'll leave you with a few pictures from Relay: