Houston, we have circulation! (most of the time)
Written by The Thyroid Chronicles on October 21, 2009 – 9:42 pm -I waddled into the clinic in a tracksuit, looking like a bag of ass and feeling even worse. The inefficiency at the clinic causes a two-hour wait for most appointments and the parking is only on the street, so I had to keep shuffling out to my car to move it. I discovered that one needs to be able to walk properly in order to jaywalk successfully. In spite of said mental note, I jaywalked three separate times, slightly terrified with Frogger graphics playing in my mind as I once again forgot I was incapable of jogging and hurriedly dragged my left leg along behind me while trying to stumble across the street.
My fave moment was when I stepped on the scale and the nurse said “128″. I said wistfully, “I weighed 117.5 last week.” She glanced around and said, “Maybe we can find you another scale…” “Nope, that won’t be necessary, that one was accurate, I’m just having a bit of a situation at the moment.” I could hear the frowns in my own voice. I felt like I was cropdusting the clinic with those sad little Zoloft faces (which are ridiculously cute, aren’t they?).
The med student was very sweet and did not let her jaw drop like most peeps do when I discussed how I’d fOked with the thyroid. I asked why peeps can cure themselves of cancer but I can’t stop making antibodies against my own thyroid. She told me the usual thing, that once you have thyroid disease you have to be medicated for the rest of your life and we are lucky now to have the medicine, because people used to die from hypothyroidism. I nodded sagely, a little scurred since I thought I was perhaps going to expire just the day before. Regardless of the outcome of my experiment, the underlying problem still remained: I needed medicine, but could not get it anywhere. I actually managed to get a bottle a few weeks ago (no, I won’t share) but wasn’t taking it because I wanted to do my experiment. Here’s my rationale: if I took the full bottle, then ran out, then could not refill it, then I would be SOL on my deathbed. If I saved the bottle In Case Of Emergency, however, I could do the experiment and start taking the pizzizzles again if my body completely broke down, as it did, which would buy me some time to figure out next steps. Anywho, I showed the student my bottle and she said, incredulously, “But you have refills left.” I was having trouble getting through here. I tried to explain again that the sky could be raining Armour prescriptions but there are no PILLZ to fill them. I tried to describe to her how it was backordered, like the Hermes Birkin bag was back in the day.
Armour backordered like the Birkin of yore
Unfort, going to the clinic at that particular stage in my illness was not very helpful. One needs to be on consistent medication for six weeks before blood tests are done in order to know if one needs their levels adjusted, so I will be having the blood work when the time is nigh. If I were to have taken blood tests that day, all they would’ve proven was I definitely needed medication, stat. The clinic will give me a prescription, just as soon as I find a pharmacy that carries Armour. If I wouldn’t have gone in, however, I reckon someone would have dragged me there anyway, so it was just best to go with the flow and get some professional corroboration, if not a little sympathy.
I have a bottle of 60mg pills but I take 75mg/day, so I am supposed to take 1 1/4 of them each day. Armour changed the formulation of the binding, which I’ve heard is part of the supply problem, so even with a pill cutter, the pills spray apart like I hit them with a hammer. Thus, I take 1 1/2 pills one day, 1 1/2 the next, 1 the next, which is not really accurate. I’m almost a little too pOmped, so I think I’m going to start taking only 1 pill, 60mgs/day, just to string them along. After they run out, I will likely have to find a compounding pharmacy and pay $60/month to have my prescription formulated. I’ve heard of a medication called Nature-throid but I haven’t found any pharmacy that carries it. I shall not be taking the hideous Synthroid, as I looked and felt only slightly better while taking that than I did last week on nothing at all. Perhaps I can contract with a local meat packer to get their unused raw thyoid glands. fOk!
- I do not want to have to eat these raw out of cows
Incidentally, I went back to the clinic today and weighed myself on that same scale: 120. Within one week, I went from 117.5 to 128 and nine days after that I weighed 120. My left side has circulation most of the time though I still can’t sleep on it. I am walking normally and only occasionally feel the need to shake my left arm and leg like Rain Man. Sometimes everything looks like it’s made out of satin or candy and I have to take a seat rather quickly, which makes me wonder if I had some sort of stroke along the way. My throat has been closing up a lot so I make a lot of faces, which is really no different from any other time. I do a lot of sleeping, so much so that it is more accurately termed “nightly hibernation” – up to 12 hours/day. I feel bad for my body and am trying to be really nice to it. I think the Vidacell stuff I’m taking has actually been quite helpful, as I have bounced back rather quickly. I am also relieved to look cherubic as opposed to balloon-like. Thankfully, no one had to see 128, since I was sequestered in my apartment wearing the same tracksuit like the visage of death for those few days.
Thyroid, how you vex me. But I will still experiment, because that is what I do.
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