Don't give up fighting for yourself

I remember when I  first started to get examined to see if there was something wrong with my thyroid, I wasn't really listened to at all. Yes, they could see that the right part of it was a bit enlarge but no danger, we send you to do an ultrasound on your thyroid...So I went to get my first ultrasound on my throat, the whole thing went very quick and I wasn't given any info more than that yes, the right part was enlarged, after that the doctor seemed to be in a hurry, he didn't ask me if I had any questions or so, he just started rushing of, I tried to ask a question and I promise I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that all he did was give me a quick  "no"  and then he said "goodbye" without even looking  at me and left the room with me sitting there not knowing anything about what happens next. A while later was I sent to the endocrine unit for some more help, the so called expert I meet there told me that none of my long list of symptoms I had was because of my thyroid, so my sudden weight gain even though I was training hard almost every day, was not because of my thyroid, the joint pain, the shortness of breath, the fact that I got lactic acid in my legs in no time (again I was in good shape when all this happened so it was out of the ordinary for me) , unbearable fatigue,  and so much more.. non of that was because of my thyroid, even though it now was proven that something was wrong with it, even though we didn't know just what yet.  They just waved it of, why you might ask? Well, cause I also suffer from depression and therefore she said that ALL my symptoms  (more than what I've listed here) were just psychosomatic.( Even though I lived with my depression for years, I am getting help for it and never had any physical symtoms.)  The only thing she listen to was when I said that I had a hard time breathing while training and I lied to her and said it had ruined my sport career  (white lie, it just meant I couldn't compete in a local taekwondo competition, I have certainly never had a career in sports.), she took that seriously enough to put me on a waiting list to have my thyroid removed, I didn't really think I needed to have it removed, but I was desperate for getting help with my problems and I thought this was the only way considering no one believed what a hard time I had with it. I had also mentioned that my period was irregular, so the doctor sent me to get my blood work done to see if they could find something wrong with my hormones. I wasn't told exactly what she was looking for, but when I checked my journals a few week later I could read that she looked for pcos.. since she never got back to me I just assumed that she didn't find anything  (although I do suspect I can hade endometrios, but that's a whole other story). The carousel with my thyroid goes on,

I had a few ultrasounds on my throat, the right part definitely enlarged, split opinions on the left. I did a lot of blood work, not much to say about that. Somehow I still managed to advocate for myself hard enough to actually get an appointment with a surgeon. He tells me that before doing the surgery I must do a biopsy on my thyroid  (yay, needle in my throat!) So I get an appointment to do this in another city, two needle right next to each other (looked like i've been bitten by a vampire..), doesn't hurt, so if anyone has something like this coming up, don't worry, the thought of it is worse than what it actually is! Anyway, time to wait for another doctors appointment, can't stress enough how grateful I am for the Swedish health care system, otherwise I could never afford all this. Anyway, get to see the doctor and finally, a year after my symptoms started showing I find out I have Hashimotos, didn't know what it was, the doctor tells me it's a chronic autoimmune illnesses that attacks the thyroid gland so it stops working, and that's pretty much all he tells me, oh yeah, he also told me that the blood work I had done before the biopsy showed that I probably had an autoimmun disease, but they didn't tell me that before they sent me to get the biopsy. 

After my diagnosis I have done a lot of reading up on hashimotos, and it really does effects the entire body, it gives joint pain, shortness of breath, slow/non functioning metabolism, lowers your stamina, your body temperatur goes down, and of course gives you chronic fatigue. I'm also at risk for diabetes, fibromyalgi, ME, celiaci, and endometriosis  (as I said earlier, I think I might already have endo, but that's another story for another day.) 50% of people with hashimotos develop one or more autoimmune diseases in 5-8 years time, 

So, I have the diagnosis, they know it's something wrong with my thyroid, they know my immunsystem is attacking my thyroid, and I feel like crap. Oh no, but wait, even though this is happening and you feel shitty we can't help you just jet, your immune system has to attack your thyroid some more, even though it's common knowledge that you can be sick, have all the symptoms and even have too low amount of thyroid hormones in your body for over a year before it shows up in your blood work, you don't get any help before it does. So now you have to live with this and walk around feeling crappy, but we won't help you cause we can't see anything in your blood. But you definitely have this illness that will affect both your physical and mental health. 

So, I kept fighting for myself, kept pressure on doctors for regular check ups and blood work to see how it progressed, and then "finally" this summer, two years after I started having problems, my blood work showed that my thyroid hormones were too low and I started on the lowest dose of levaxin. Now I just have to make sure to keep an eye on symptoms for some of the other illnesses hashimotos can cause you, and make sure to have regular check ups to see how my meds is working. 

I'm already fighting for getting help with some other problems with my body too, non thyroid related, and it's tiresome and you feel like a hypochondriac when you bring up one thing after another, but I really just want to get to the bottom with this once and for all. With my adhd I already have a mind that differ from most people, so can I
please at least get a body that works somewhat Ok? 

Beautiful autumn day with my family

Today my older sister and my niece came over from Denmark, so me and mom spent the day with them. A tripp out in natur and some celebrating my niece whom had a birthday in the beginning of September (actually, we both had, she is born on my 24th birthday). It was a really nice day, calm and exactly what I needed after yesterdays court day and extreme headache. Only thing that went wrong today was the fact that I was so tired from being so emotionally drained yesterday so I slept way to heavily, not waking up when mom called and making everyone freak out out of worry for me, but it all turned out ok in the end, I was after all only sleeping.. and sleep is something I want to do now as well, I'm still tired and not fully recovered from yesterday, and the fact that I have had heavy period pain the entire day hasn't helped, so I will soon crawl down in my bed, maybe do some reading before I fall asleep.

Sorry for not having anything more exciting to talk about, here you got some pictures from today instead.

Court day and moral curage

(TW- violence against women)
So, in February this year, in the middle of the day on a Sunday, on my way to taekwondo practice, I witnessed an assault. A man beating up a woman. I tried to go in between, and he threatened me, I could see in his eyes, in his facial expression, that he was dangerous, and I got scared. Still, I couldn't just walk away, so I hid behind some bushes, called the police and had to stand there watching him throwing her down on the ground while waiting for the police to come. A woman in a car heard me talking to the police and backed her car so the woman could jump in, then I had to run and hid so the man wouldn't go after me, he disappeared and me still talking to the police and believing the coast was clear went to go look at the street name where I saw him walk away (the police wanted to know) suddenly he came out of nowhere and started to chase me, luckily I got away.

Today was court day, I of course was called as a witness. It was scary to go in there, see him and knowing that he now got a good look at my face and also learned my name, but I don't regret for a single second my interference, I have always said that I of course would do something if I saw something like this happen, but honestly you don't know until you truly are in that situation. I am also so glad that the woman pressed charges against him, I know that that's not always the case, and I hope he really goes down for this.

Please, if you ever are in a situation where you can help someone, even if you can't physically interfere, call the police, do something, it's important, don't be a bystander, if you see something like this happen it IS your business, weather you like it or not.

 On my way to the court this morning..

 

That foggy feeling of sleep deprivation

Thinking of good things to write, trying to form words to write something insightful and interesting, but I'm so tired from my sleepless nights that my brain don't work as it should. Hopefully I will be able to get a good nights sleep this night, cause I really need it.

So, what have I been up to today? Not much really, done a little bit of shopping (new book! The third in the series of Miss Peregrines home for peculiar children) and that's pretty much it, as I said, sleep deprived, so I've been running on an empty tank, but I wanted to make a blog post anyway, figured that now that I've started I should get in to it and make sure I have a somewhat good start.

It's still to early to go to bed, she's only 7.30 PM, so I have to wait a couple of more hours if I want to make sure that I can fall asleep and sleep through the whole night (with a little help from my meds), so I'm enjoying some cold beer and netflix. Hopefully this blog will be filled with interesting posts in the near future, but today this is all I got.

When it's dark out.

She's 04.41 in the morning, it's still dark outside and I haven't slept all night. Insomnia. Suddenly inspiration struck and I had to get out of my bed to sit down at my computer and finally start a blog. That's so typical me, always starting new projects at weird hours. Lucky I have nowhere to be today, so when sleep comes I can sleep. If it comes before it's light out, I can't go to bed once the sun is up, don't know why, that's just the way it is. I want to go back to my bed and my sea of pillows, but I don't think it will work, I will toss and turn until the brink of day, or well... it kinda is the brink of day right now, it just doesn't feel like it cause it's still so dark outside.

One good thing about suffering from insomnia is that you get meds to sleep on, then of course, if you didn't suffer from it you wouldn't need them. Anyway, I have the meds, didn't take them last night, but will make sure to take them this evening so I can get some rest. I need lots of rest this week, come Friday I will have to go to court to witness, more on why in a separate post.

I'm hungry, maybe I should just make me some breakfast and start the day? Of course me starting the day would only mean eating my breakfast while watching netflix. Have a few errands to run today, but nothing will be open until another few hours. So, breakfast it is, coffee. Always caffeine in some way.

So.. good morning and welcome to my blog.