Sorry for the long interval between posts, but this has been a challenging two weeks
After my last post, my fatigue and reduced appetite continued to impact my day to day quality of life. Approaching the second infusion we reviewed the preparatory lab tests, and saw some concerning values related to my endocrine system (details in Nitty Gritty)
My pituitary gland was not functioning properly in its role for my body. After the infusion we scheduled a new set of labs to identify certain enzyme levels and hormone levels specific to my symptoms. The results showed severely low levels of key hormones in my body
We immediately started with both Synthroid and corticosteroid to try and balance. I can say with great pleasure that the additional drugs have been literal lifesavers
Although I work for a pharmaceutical company, I am usually more minimalist in my daily life regarding use of medicinal aids to manage what I feel are symptoms better managed through lifestyle changes.
In this case the impact of the cancer medicine was so significant that without the addition of this medicine I was fading away.
I additionally wanted to follow Thanksgiving by giving thanks to all the doctors and nurses, pharmacist, clinicians, and businesses that keep us alive through all types of illness. If you ever doubt why you do what you do, let me tell you I don’t!
Stay Safe Be Kind
And now the need for Full Disclosure to all my AbbVie coworkers.
Above I wrote that I used Synthroid. I specifically spoke to the doctor about writing me a DAW script for Synthroid.
I was on the marketing team that produced the original DAW campaign during the launch of the first generic not pharma identical competitor. When I explained to the doctor the cost benefits as well, he responded that with a holiday weekend he was concerned that if he wrote a DAW scrip, if the pharmacy did not have Synthroid brand on the shelf it may take five to six days for them to fill. He did not want to lose that treatment time, and since we were ‘winging’ the initial dosage anyway, we agreed that if it became a lifelong need we could start long-term titration with Synthroid (I agreed because if I come off it after the cancer meds it won’t show up as a lost Synthroid scrip, and if I need to continue then my new Synthoid scrip will show as a switch as well (as always, playing the ‘spin’)).
So at present I am on levothyroxine and prednisone daily and it is making a massive quality-of-life improvement
Reading what you wrote brings this David Whyte prose to mind and at Thanksgiving time. If one pays attention and is present in being gratitude abounds.
“GRATITUDE is not a passive response to something we have been given, gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without and beside us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a-priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life.
Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things must come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege; that we are miraculously, part of something, rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the color blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape.
To see the full miraculous essentiality of the color blue is to be grateful with no necessity for a word of thanks. To see fully, the beauty of a daughter’s face across the table, of a son’s outline against the mountains, is to be fully grateful without having to seek a God to thank him. To sit among friends and strangers, happy dogs, or the whole menagerie of our acquaintance, hearing many voices, strange opinions; to intuit even stranger inner lives beneath calm surface lives, to inhabit many worlds at once in this world, to be a someone amongst all other someones, and therefore to make a conversation without saying a word, is to deepen our sense of presence and therefore our natural sense of thankfulness that everything happens both with us and without us, that we are participants and witness all at once.
Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. We sit at the table as part of every other person’s world while making our own world without will or effort, this is what is extraordinary and gifted, this is the essence of gratefulness, seeing to the heart of privilege. Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Being unappreciative might mean we are simply not paying attention.” ~ David Whyte
Happy you found something familiar that works! Keep the updates coming!
All the best,
Laurie
I am so so glad the meds improved things right away. I know it’s still not your “normal” or by any means “easy”, but I too am thankful that my big bro is doing better. System shutdowns on big brothers make little sisters cry ☹️❤️
Glad you’re hanging in there! You are a champion!You’ll be thru this soon!
Love you!!!! Been
So glad you found something that works. Prednisone is what I started out on when first diagnosed with Sjogren’s Syndrome. Since then, thyroid cancer and removal of thyroid and 3 parathyroid glands, my “cocktail” is Synthroid and Plaquenil. It allows me to be functional – not without pain – but function to a more “normal” degree. Keep pushing through – we are “cheering” you on through the nitty-gritty stuff.