To infinity and beyond!

Not wanting to give the impression that my body is almost entirely falling apart, but tonight I went and had an MRI scan to try and get to the bottom of the wierd symphony of snap, crackle and pop that has been dancing inside my ears for nearly a year and a half now. It is to say the very least, amazingly irritating.

I had rather hoped when I was diagnosed with the thyroid thing that they would be linked and the ear popping would magically stop with the tiredness, depression and mad weight gain. No such luck. So off I went to St Helier Hosptial for my MRI scan this evening, again with an amazement and awareness of how lucky I am to live in a country where, when there is something wrong with me, I go to the doctors and am sent for expensive scans and given medicine for free.

I was rather excited by the whole prospect. It is now clear to me that I've watched far too many episodes of House. I am strangely addicted to it. That and Location, Location, Location. The housing one is more understandable - the huge desire to have a place of my own. But House is rather formulaic, though Hugh Laurie is very funny.

Anyway, so there I was in my very own medical drama, happily without Dr House, and even more happily without one of those ugly medical gowns that open at the back to show the world your naked bottom. I was allowed to stay in my tracksuit bottoms and jumper.

I lay down on a long pull out shelf/plank and my head was wedged still and they put ear plugs in my ears and told me it would take about 10 minutes and be very noisy and to do my best not to move. No problem.

The tray slid in, rather like the contraptions they keep dead bodies on in a morgue. I was in a spacey white cylinder, unable to move, with a pump in my hand, like old fashioned photographers have for taking the photo, to press if I started to panic. Above me there was a little mirror so I could see out if I wanted, but I decided to keep my eyes shut.

The scan itself was like a practical joke. It sounded like a very contemporary piece of music. A mixture of african drum beats and sirens. Very strange. I wouldn't be surprised to turn up at the Sadlers Wells and see Rambert doing a dance piece to something similar.

It went on for 10 minutes in bursts of three or one and then that was that and I went home on my bike. That machine could see inside my head. Isn't that amazing? Those odd sounds were it looking inside my head to try and find out what is making the popping... There's nought as strange as folk, or at least, nought as strange as what folk have made for other folk.

Hypothyroidism

I met up for coffee today with a very old, very dear friend and mentioned that another old and dear friend had said that she'd been reading the blog and was worried about me due to my posts. She said that she had been too. So just in case there are friends out there actually reading this and worried about my maudlin don't be, there is an explanation.

I was at a very low ebb this summer, as it seems was apparent. Indeed so much so that I actually went to the doctor because I was getting a bit worried about myself. She did a blood test and discovered that I have hypothyroidism. This sounds very flash and rather scary, but actually is quite straight forward. It means that for some strange reason my body doesn't produce enough thyroxine.

The Internet superhighway tells me that:-

"Hypothyroidism is a condition in which the body lacks sufficient thyroid hormone. Since the main purpose of thyroid hormone is to "run the body's metabolism", it is understandable that people with this condition will have symptoms associated with a slow metabolism. Over five million Americans have this common medical condition. In fact, as many as ten percent of women may have some degree of thyroid hormone deficiency. Hypothyroidism is more common than you would believe...and, millions of people are currently hypothyroid and don't know it!

Symptoms:

Fatigue
Weakness
Weight gain or increased difficulty losing weight
Coarse, dry hair
Dry, rough pale skin
Hair loss
Cold intolerance (can't tolerate the cold like those around you)
Muscle cramps and frequent muscle aches
Constipation
Depression
Irritability
Memory loss
Abnormal menstrual cycles
Decreased libido"

I am tick box on quite a few of these - depression, exhaustion, difficulty loosing weight, feeling the cold etc. but the fantastic thing is that all you need to do is take a pill (each day forever) and then you feel fine.

And I do feel so fine. Amazingly well. It's extraordinary to feel my vitality returning, my energy, my delight in life. And most of all mentally. I had got so worried about how difficult I found it to focus and concentrate. I felt like I was swimming through lead both mentally and physically. And now I don't. It's as though my life has been given back to me.

It makes me think of all the people who suffer from this, or something much worse and aren't able to just go to the doctors and be given a pill and have to suffer on, unknowing.

I am still questioning a lot. About what I want to do with my life, what the right path is. I don't want to just throw it away. I want to be of use to the world. I believe in theatre, but perhaps not for a narrow middle class audience. But what then? It means huge changes and I'm not quite sure what they should be and feel a little scared at the prospect, but excited too. And now I'm buzzing with 75mg I feel capable of almost anything. And I'm not even up to 100mg yet... ahh, drugs. How I love them.

Thank you for the kind thoughts.
xx