So getting back into blogging, so I am going to take it simple at first.
So let me summarize my health stuff, before I give an update. It has been a long while since I have done one of those.
About six years ago, I began to have a number of strange health issues. My feet began swelling. I began having severe and random muscle aches and pains. I was constantly lethargic and could not maintain my weight. I’ve been heavy all my life, but despite spending the majority of my day walking (and later limping) across a college campus of three blocks, I began to gain weight again. I became highly sensitized to cold, going so far as to sleep under a thick blanket even on nights where the temperature crept towards eighty. In short, I was cold, tired and miserable.
Some people might already recognize these signs as severe hypothyroidism. My doctor at the time had only one answer, “you are fat, lose weight.” Even after my right leg swelled so badly that the skin split in the night, that was the answer. “get up and exercise until you sweat!” Which was great, except I was in severe pain and even when I pushed myself until I was gasping for breath, I did not sweat. All of these should have been signs to my doctor, but they weren’t.
The assistance I got from my doctor was minimal, but I believed her. Why? Because that is part of how we are trained to think. We’re trained to believe that being fat causes all our problems. So, I tried and hated myself for failing, for not being able to move because I was in pain. Blamed myself for being unable to do the things I thought I had to do.
It took years for me to finally look for another doctor. And finally get the courage to speak to someone. But I had to do something, the muscle pains had become unbearable. Worse, we had an extremely hot summer and I overheated because I was not sweating. I had to just suck it up and accept that this wasn’t getting any better.
The new doctor ran blood tests. He actually spoke to me, asked me questions. In a few weeks, I had a diagnosis and medication. In a few months, I saw the first results. We played with the medications and made changes to my diet and my behavior.
In six months, I was no longer having the occasional skin splits. In a year, I no longer had to fear waking up in the middle of the night with muscle aches so bad I wanted to scream. I slowly started to lose weight, the swelling in my legs began to go down and just a few months ago, I started to sweat again.
(A small comment about sweating. It’s REALLY GROSS! I hate it. At the same time, I am so happy to actually do it. It’ll be nice to go through a summer without having to spend an hour in a cool shower just to keep from passing out.)
I am so warm these days, that the husband has taken to closing the door in the computer room and turning on the heat, because I grouch when he tries to turn on the heat in the living room. I haven’t lost as much weight as I would like, but part of that is just being out of the habit of being able to do anything. It’s slow and steady progress, but I am happy. I just wish I had taken control of the situation sooner.
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