When Your Body Turns On You

So crazy things have happened with my health in the last few years. I didn't realize how much I took for granted until things started to shut down. It started with extreme fatigue but that seemed semi-normal to me since I have little children and I work a lot. I thought this is just how you feel when you get a little older and have strain on your body from children. Other moms can agree I am sure!
But then I started having inexplicable weight gain and really bad headaches every time I woke up. My mom was helping me watch my girls while I worked and she told me that she wouldn't help me unless I went in to see the doctor. I guess other people could see how different things were with me and that something was really wrong.
So I went in to see an internist and see if we could figure things out. (If anyone needs a good doctor that will spend a lot of time talking with you let me know...great guy!)
So after I saw him and discussed my symptoms he ordered a bunch of tests and I found out that I have sleep apnea, 9 cysts on my thyroid causing me to have no thyroid function at all and that my tonsils were huge and needed to come out as well. Wow! Who knew that there was actually and explanation for all my problems!
So I found that out a few months ago and now I have surgery scheduled to have my tonsils out and adenoids. Hopefully that helps me with the breathing at night too. I mean I would love to sleep with a C-Pap machine every night and look like an old man or an alien.....but I am not sure how sexy that is to my husband!
The thyroid problem has turned out to be quite another problem. Before this I didn't know that you could live without a thyroid but apparently you can....you just have to be on hormone replacement for the rest of your life!!! If I were 70 then I might feel better about this but at 29 it is kind of hard for me. I guess I should be grateful that there is medicine out there that can help me and that it is not too expensive. After talking a lot with the doctor and deciding that they couldn't remove the cysts and get any thyroid function back at all then we might just remove the thyroid. Then he told me about another option where you can just drink radioactive iodine and kill your thyroid so that it doesn't turn toxic on your body! Hmmm Does that really sound safe to anyone else? At first it really freaked me out but the more I have talked to him and the more I have read about it I think it might be the better option. But then I will just have a dead thyroid in my body. That is a little weird to me but I don't want it to cause me any more problems either.
Matt thinks that I need to just start all over and get a super bionic body or become half machine or something like that. With two foot surgeries to do as well that involve huge recovery time.....I tend to agree with him!
The doctor told me that I need to get this all fixed before I can have any more children or it will really shut me down more than it already has. I am grateful that they can fix this but it is hard for me that I have a lot to do before I can have more children!
Pregnancy is also a time when your body turns on you! I am watching my poor sister right now being so nauseous and it brings back horrible memories. Sophie was worth every second of it but I remember when the nausea was so bad that I couldn't even keep down water! All the being hooked up to an IV 4 times a week just so that I could keep from getting severely dehydrated and the doctor finally putting me on the same nausea pill that they give Chemo patients so that I could get through.....all while trying to teach and not throw up in front of the kids and take care of my one and a half year old! Maybe I can just focus on that for awhile until we can add more little people to our family!
I am grateful for all that I have. I just needed to vent a little about all of my upcoming surgeries/toxic drinks that I get to go through.
It sure is nice when your body works the way that it is supposed to. And how much we take it for granted until it turns on you! I know that there are many out there who are suffering with things much worse than me and to those I wish you the best and may we all not take our health for granted!