Runaway train

As all women do after having a baby, I was eager to lose the weight I had gained while pregnant. Not that it was a crazy amount of weight, but I wanted to work hard to not let my baseline weight be higher than it was before I became pregnant with my son. I want to quickly preface all of this by saying that focusing on weight alone is not the key to becoming your healthiest self, and I understood this. I was aware of what I ate, not restrictive, but aware. If I felt like that piece of cake, sure, I ate it. But, I drew the line at having multiple pieces of cake in a day. I knew that eating to fuel my body and doing a moderate amount of exercise would help me to feel like myself again.

At the end of my maternity leave, I felt good. I had lost most of the baby weight, as evidenced by the sweet chubbiness of my son’s cheeks. We had enjoyed a wonderful maternity leave together, and I was feeling very sad about returning to work. Little did I know that lurking around the corner was the end of life as we knew it thanks to COVID-19. Two and half weeks after I returned to work post-maternity leave, schools closed to in-person instruction. We were all placed in the new situation of working from home while simultaneously taking care of the children and teaching our classes. In short, it was insanity.

From March to May, we struggled daily with taking care of all our responsibilities. I had picked up the habit of taking a daily walk by myself so I could escape my computer screen, the crying children, and the house. Those 30-45 minutes I spent every day were so important to my mental health, and I credit my ability to stay afloat to making sure I had that “me” time every day. Thanks to the walk, my weight stabilized, and I felt good.

By mid-June, things were clicking along as school had ended and we were enjoying time together as a family without the daily distraction of work. We enjoyed a short trip to the beach, our first foray out of the house since the pandemic hit. It was filled with much relaxing, swimming, and soaking in the sun. In short, it was absolutely wonderful.

I wore my fitness tracker watch religiously, checking on my resting heart rate, steps, and active minutes. I felt good about the dip in my resting heart rate, returning to my usual 50-55 bpm after having the baby. During our trip to the beach, I noticed that it started climbing a little bit, ending at 62 bpm by the time we had returned home. I didn’t really think much of it other than I was feeling a little stressed leaving our relaxing vacation to go back to the daily grind at the house.

Over the next four weeks, my resting heart rate steadily climbed, topping out around 83 bpm near the end of July. I knew something was up, but I really didn’t know what it could mean. I pinned my increasing RHR on the fact that I would be returning to work in person soon. I was nervous about returning back to work. Although I wouldn’t have any students in my classroom for a few weeks, I was worried about being around other people after having been sequestered with my family for so long.

On the morning I got ready to go to work, I stepped on the scale. I was surprised to see that I was below 130 lbs. In my entire adult life, I have never been below 150 lbs. It was a shocking number, and I wondered how I had lost so much weight. I thought maybe it was because I had been at home breastfeeding my son all summer. Or maybe it was my daily walks? It definitely couldn’t be my daily piece of chocolate…

I struggled to find something in my closet that fit, and in fact, I ended up rolling the waistband of the pants I wore because they couldn’t be held up with the belt I chose. I didn’t really think anything of it and was secretly excited that I had lost more weight.

Everyone at work ooh-ed and ahh-ed over how small I was. It was definitely an ego boost, and I felt good about the work I had done over the summer with the daily walks to help me maintain my health. But, in the background, I was concerned about my unusually high RHR. In addition, I noticed that I was feeling jittery long after my morning coffee’s caffeine was metabolized out in the day. I was aware of my heart beating more often, and sometimes it felt like it was pounding out of my chest. I again pinned these things to my worries and fears about being around people after having spent an entire six months quarantined with my family.

School started up, students came back, and life was moving along. My children went back to their respective schools, and while there were a few COVID scares here and there, things were going well.

Like most people, my health insurance has a rewards program that offers points if you complete certain items. An annual well check was one of those things that would grant you points that you could use toward deductibles or other. I decided to schedule my well check on a holiday in early October. I was required to fast in order to have my fasting blood sugar taken. It was extremely challenging not eating that morning, and I felt terrible until I was able to eat. My primary care provider was glad to see me and my progress in terms of my health. She let me know that she would call me with my results in a few days.

An entire week went by, and I had not heard from the doctor. She had told me to expect a call within three days. I didn’t really think much of it. My phone rang during my lunch period the following week on a Wednesday, and I was lucky enough to see it in order to answer it. I had a feeling it was the doctor’s office. Over the next three minutes, everything changed.

“Your blood sugars, triglycerides, and cholesterol looks great. However, you have an extremely elevated level of thyroxine. In addition, you have elevated levels of liver enzymes in your blood.”

I asked the nurse to repeat the information again so I could write it down. I wanted to understand what this meant.

“Ma’am… Dr. A has diagnosed you with hyperthyroidism. She has recommended that you see an endocrinologist.”

Hyperthyroidism? What in the world is that? I had never heard of the condition at all. I had heard about hypothyroidism where your metabolism worked at a lower rate than it should due to your thyroid… but I didn’t know there existed a condition where the complete opposite was possible.

I thanked the nurse and immediately went to researching what hyperthyroidism was. I know, I know… no one should ever Google medical conditions and expect rainbows and unicorns, but I had to know what hyperthyroidism was. Research revealed that this condition could affect my liver, my heart, cause strokes, eye issues, death…

I then looked up treatment plans, and almost all of them included radioactive routes that struck fear in my heart. I saw that many of the treatment plans basically stuck you with the opposite condition, hypothyroidism, and that the change could be permanent. I was scared what treatment could mean for me and how drastically my life would change. I immediately thought about my son. Would I have to stop breastfeeding? Would I pass this condition on to my children?

I am just over a week away from my appointments that will hopefully answer some of these questions. I am very afraid of what comes next… no one in my family has a health condition like this, so I have no context for what treatment looks like. I am worried for my husband, my children… I am also worried for myself. Left unchecked, hyperthyroidism can lead to so much more than just weight loss. I am worried because it has been at least three months since I started experiencing these symptoms… just how much has been damaged in that time?

So, here I am, wondering, waiting… trying not to let the fear overcome me. This thyroid journey is just beginning, but I’m not sure that I’m ready.