So You're a Little Sad, So What? : Nice Things to Say to Yourself on Bad Days and Other Essays (9781551527888) by Tobin Alicia

Author:Tobin, Alicia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc
Published: 2020-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

HASHIMOTO’S POTATO

2010

One morning I couldn’t tie my own shoes. To be fair, I couldn’t have tied anyone’s shoes that day. My hips wouldn’t bend, my hamstrings just stiff rods, my feet a million miles away. I was going to be late for work. So, there I was, in my early thirties, needing help tying my shoes. Already? Pain and insomnia were followed by the inability to fully wake up. Depression was a muddy blur and made me feel like there was a foot on my chest each morning. Well, I could live with that. I am extremely good at dragging my wagon. But I couldn’t tie my shoes, and that was really a problem. Not that the other symptoms were not. I had no energy. My get-up-and-go had dwindled to gone. Exhausted, I was cancelling stand-up shows and avoiding my friends. My memory wasn’t great, and I was forgetting people’s names, even the names of people I knew well.

Back to my shoe-tying problem. Not ready for Ugg boots (over my dead body, and those of a few nude sheep), I went to see my doctor. I told her my symptoms, and she asked if I’d had my thyroid tested. I had not. What is a thyroid? It must be a pretty big deal if it can turn me into a sad marionette. My results from my thyroid-stimulating hormone blood test came back and I was hypothyroid, or low thyroid. I had many of the symptoms, some severe, but they were also the symptoms of many other conditions. I feel very lucky that my doctor tested my thyroid because the potential to be misdiagnosed, especially with depression, is high. She sent me home with a prescription for a thyroid replacement.

I had no idea what any of this meant, but I felt like I had an answer for the past many months of feeling completely off. I took the medication. Everything was going to be great! I gently patted myself on my back. And then, a few weeks later, my hair started to fall out. In clumps. Excellent! I could make a sweater to keep me warm.

It took a while for me to talk about this, as I was afraid that people would find out that I couldn’t do, and didn’t even want to do, things I once did, at least not all the time. I was concerned they’d see my insides, which are mostly soft, with some angry bits and maybe made of red thread. Keep in mind that until 2010, I didn’t even know what a thyroid was, and I am still not clear what is going on in there exactly. Until recently, I thought babies came from belly buttons. And I was right. Don’t let someone touch your belly button unless you can imagine them being the parent of your child one day.

The best part of the song “Hearts and Bones” by Paul Simon is when his lover asks why she can’t be loved for who and where she is.

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