And breathe......

Right now, at this present moment I feel pure relief. Relief that I'm not a hypochondriac. Relief that I've not been overreacting. Relief that eventually I can get myself back on the road to recovery.

I've been waiting on a phone call from the consultant to let me know what my blood tests showed. The blood tests that I had taken earlier today."We have your results Miss Duffy and they do show that your thyroid is underactive. But it's not just underactive, it's dramatically underactive. They show extremely low T4 (thyroxine) levels, levels in fact that we wouldn't normally expect to see. It's no surprise at all that you've been feeling the way you have."

If I had the energy I'd do a little dance round the living room. I knew I was ill, I knew this wasn't just me making it up. But the doubts did cross my mind. I'd heard people say they had an underactive thyroid and never had any problems. So was all of this in my imagination? Was I losing it? Luckily it turns out I wasn't. And so now I can start taking the tablets that will hopefully get me back on the mend and back to feeling remotely human again. But it's more than that. The sooner I'm back on my feet, the sooner I can start looking at my blood sugar levels and my diabetes.

I mentioned in a previous post that the thyroid affects the way the human body uses insulin. Prior to having thyroid issues I was taking twice as much insulin as I am now. So although I can breathe a massive sigh of relief that my thyroxine levels could soon be under control, I need to prepare myself for the stress that comes with erractic blood sugar levels. But this is the way it has to be for the short term future. There's no quick fix. As the two illnesses have a direct effect on each other, it's impossible to treat them both at the same time. One needs to be fixed before the other can even be looked at. But it's cool. I knew this and now I feel like maybe I've turned a corner.

Some of you may be a little bit bored hearing me moan on about being sick. You may be sat there thinking I should take a look around me and see that there are so many people worse off. And you know what? You're right. I have sat watching those incredibly brave people running with the Olympic torch, each with their own story. Some have been to war, fought for MY country, and have come back missing limbs, vision, hearing, and colleagues. And yet they're out there running to show that regardless of what they've been through, they will not be beaten.

So I do take a look at myself. I have a job, I have a roof over my head, I have amazing science keeping me alive every day, and most importantly I have friends and family that love me. And I am incredibly grateful and humbled for that. I always try to remember that there are people worse off than me, it's something that my mum taught me from a very early age. But I saw something on tv this morning that will stick wth me for a very long time. Katie Piper was being interviewed. For those of you that don't know, Katie was a beautiful young lady that had acid maliciously thrown in her face a few years back. She has been through many, many a painful operation, and has had to live with the awful consequences of what happened. What she's been through is just impossible to comprehend. But after being asked a question she replied by saying that no one person's problems are more important than someone else's. If you're struggling to cope with something, and it's dramatically affecting you going about your daily activities, then it's a problem, regardless of what it is.

So I won't feel guilty about what I'm going through. However I will appreciate the life that I have been given, and hope and pray that maybe one day I can show the strength and courage that those less fortunate than me show.

K x