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trailing wife |
But survivors have to live the rest of their lives taking a pill every day to "replace the loss of thyroid function"...not exactly a picnic, not to mention worrying about recurring tumors.
Ebbang Uluque6305, a study of cadavers done some years ago showed that some 20% of the U.S. population has a symptom-free, unsuspected brain tumour at death, of less consequence than a hang-nail. I would have been one of them, but I developed symptoms. As a result, I now take a thyroid pill every morning, a pituitary hormone injection every night, and an MRI annually to see if the benign little tumour inside my pituitary has grown. Should it ever do so, the pituitary will need to be removed, and then my life will get truly interesting.
Taking a thyroid pill is like taking a multi-vitamin, only considerably smaller. And cheaper -- a prescription costs about $3/month. The old-style ones are made of pig thyroids left over from the slaughter houses; there are also artificial thyroid pills, which are also fairly inexpensive. A simple blood test determines if supplementation is needed, but the clinical symptom is overwhelming and chronic fatigue, and the signal that the dosage is too high is an excess of nervous energy and an inability to sleep -- much like drinking too much coffee.
There are about 5,000 people in the U.S. who've been diagnosed with my condition, and likely considerably more who quietly die of exhaustion undiagnosed, which is why that 5,000 increase in cancer deaths due to Chernobyl hasn't hit me as hard as it has you.
The thing about statistics is, someone gets to be on the wrong side of them. And that stinks. But considerably more than 5,000 are likely to die this year from food shortages or Muslim riots, or tainted milk in China -- pick your poison.
Ebbang Uluque6305, I haven't functioned normally since shortly after my 40th birthday, with children in elementary school, just because I got caught on the wrong side of the fucking statistics. For me supplementation doesn't make me able to live life normally, it takes me up to "less bad" -- that whole nap thing is not a joke, it's what I do instead of a job or housekeeping. If my husband hadn't been so demanding, and my doctor hadn't happened to remember that cadaver study and sent me for an MRI, I'd have been one of those who quietly faded away and died for no discernible reason. As it is, they won't sell me life insurance because there aren't enough cases for the computers to work up any statistics on longevity... and because the pituitary hormone supplement increases my odds an unknown amount for growing new tumours. |
2011-04-05 17:29 |
174.101.209.19 |