I got to work right on time today, but the other girl was running a few minutes late, which I believe is her routine...Phoenix would joke it's a Mexican thing to always be late...And Tortilla is Mexican...But that's not the point. Anyway, I was at work for like all of five minutes when my phone rang. I thought, "Dang it, Phoenix! You just missed the last chance to call me!" (She often calls me just before I go to work to tell me she loves me and to say she hopes I have a good day.) I looked at my phone and just before I was about to send it off to voicemail land, I saw it was my doctor's office calling...Hmmm...Weird. I decided to run to the back area by the dish washing sink where no camera can see me and answer it. "Hello?" I asked with trepidation. A cheerful sounding woman asked for Heather. I said I was she. I then got this whole rushed message that went a little something like this, "We got back your labs and your TSH levels are high, which means you have an underactive thyroid. The doctor wants you to start taking a medication to help with that. What pharmacy do you want me to call that into?" I told her which Walgreens I go to and she said she'd take care of it immediately so I could pick it up tonight. I then stopped her and asked, "Wait. What does this all mean? What does it mean to have an underactive thyroid?" She said, "Well, the thyroid releases hormones and such...Usually it affects your weight too. I could get the P.A. to come talk to you if you give me a moment." I had to decline because I was at work and Tortilla wasn't there yet. I said I would Google it and if I had questions, then I would call back in the morning. She agreed to those terms and promised to call in the prescription. I hung up and was like, "What the hell???"
So, I did what every girl does when she gets bad news...That's right, I walked across the store to the liquor section and got myself a beer. *grins* Okay, no, I didn't. I would've been fired for sure. Hey...What a good--JUST KIDDING! Okay, anyway, what I meant to say is that I called my mom. I couldn't call my girl at work and none of my friends really knew I went in for a physical, so it would take far too long to call and explain it all...My mom was like, "I have an underactive thyroid right now because the doctors lowered my hyperthyroidism to the point that I now have the opposite." (My mom has Grave's disease.) Also, my sister has an underactive thyroid. My mom said the medicine will help...I wondered though--How long had this been going on? And why in the hell did they have to call me while I was at work!? Don't they know that I don't have Google on my piece of shit cell phone that barely handles making phone calls and texts on a good day??? I felt lost...And so alone...Work is not the place to get news like this.
On the plus side, she wasn't all, "And by the way, you have Type II Diabetes and high cholesterol", so there is a good side to all, right? I mean, diabetes scares the crap out of me because I am a lover of ice cream...And cheesecake...And chocolate...And, well, you get the idea. Seriously, don't take my sugar away from me. I'm sure if they called for the high TSH levels, then they would've told me the other bad stuff too...Although, now I've probably jinxed myself.
This begs the question--What are the symptoms of hypothyroidism? Shouldn't I have known this was going on??? Well, there's sleepiness, irritability, depression, weight issues, constipation, dry rough skin, coarse hair, hair loss, forgetfulness, abnormal menstrual cycles, etc...I swear, as I read them I was like, "Okay, I have that one, but not that other one...Oh, and that...But not that..." These things are not linked together!! Never would I think that hair loss and constipation would go together and be symptoms of the same problem!! And no, those are not the ones I was checking off...*shifty eyes*
I spent my lunch break at work running to the pharmacy to get my medicine. I then waited, impatiently, for the pharmacist to explain it to me. Phoenix said it was silly to wait, but I wanted to make sure it wouldn't interact with the blood pressure medication. It won't, but I had to ask. This stupid guy though was more concerned about trying to figure out how to make a label print for something he messed up...Seriously? I'm standing in front of the guy, obviously in a hurry as I checked my phone seventy-five times in the ten minutes I was at the store. For the love of God, man, I'm on my lunch break!! He finally acknowledged me and said something like, "This is thyroid medication. Take it in the morning. It's the same routine as before." I looked at him and said, "I've never been on thyroid medication before." Of course this changed his tone slightly...Why would they assume I'd been on it before? Is that some kind of fat joke? Or is it because if I'm on thyroid medication I must've been taking it for a long, long time? What the hell??? Problems have to start somewhere, no? Anyway, he didn't tell me anything I couldn't have found out online. Idiot. He had a weird name too...It was like, "Jackass" or something like that. Just kidding. It was like, "Isolta" or something...Very weird name...And I couldn't place his accent. Apparently, pharmacists are no longer old white men with gray hair.
Yes, so, a thyroid problem. Hmmm...Does this mean I will have more energy now? Because I'm tired all the time. And I've always been one for napping and such. Does this mean that perhaps I might lose some weight? That would be freakin' fabulous!! I just don't know what to think right now...I swear, I turned 30 and I'm falling apart!! Perhaps I was falling apart before, but then I didn't have insurance to know it for sure; now I know...And it sort of sucks. It's scary, you know?
On a side note, Phoenix told me the cutest story the last night that totally made my day...Her nieces, Little Phoenix and Goofy, always want us to do crazy videos for youtube, but we haven't done any yet. One of the ones they want us to do is the Harry Potter Puppets one with the with catchy tune *sings, "Snape, Snape, Severius Snape"*, but Phoenix thought, a few weeks ago, that it would be more fun with our names instead of HP characters. (That's HP as in Harry Potter, not as in my initials or Hewlett Packard.) So, she tells the girls this and they start the song like this: "Heather, Heather, shifty-eyed Heather." Can I just tell you how much it warmed my heart that these girls know me so well that they know I write shifty shifty eyes??? I was just like, "Awwww...Really?" It was so cute. Of course, this doesn't trump the story about how Little Phoenix thought that my friend, whom I refer to as the Black Spy is not really black. Apparently, she saw the pictures of me giving her the bomb cake and was surprised to see she's not black. She explained to Phoenix that she had assumed that since I'm white, I'm the White Spy and since that's the case, then the Black Spy must be black. OMG!! I almost died laughing. The Black Spy thought this was fabulous when I told her the story via text message. She wrote back, "Tell her I'm black on the inside...You know, like how you're a Jew on the inside." Gotta love that Black Spy...*runs off to plot her demise* So, yeah, kids are awesome....*walks off singing, "Heather, Heather, shifty-eyed Heather..."*
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