Hashimoto's Thyroiditis

    The doctor was brusque. It was the first appointment of the day and he behaved as if he was running an hour behind. He spoke quickly and loudly so I had no chance of interrupting and when he wasn’t talking he was typing furiously. The keyboard shook beneath his boney hands as he pounded away at the keys, never sparing me a glance. Cross legged in the wide padded chair I sat with my hands folded and shoulders tense.
    Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. That’s what he said I had, after saying hello to me and asking me twenty questions which he himself answered by reading my chart out loud before I could get a word in. He manhandled my throat and told me to swallow, checked my reflexes with his little hammer and told me to hold out my hands to see if they shook. They didn’t. He wrote me a prescription for something called Levothyroxin, wrote and circled “For life,” and handed it to me with a one page blue printout about Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis with a picture of a butterfly in one corner.
    I found my way out of the office without his or anyone else’s help, no one was around. I was told to get my blood tested again in 2 months, and to have a nice day.
    I read my printout as I sat in the car, feeling confused and worried and angry. I was nearing 30 years old, I was single and childless. I had hopes for the future, though they had been dwindling with my ever increasing age and decreasing prospects for romance. Dating was hard, and I was probably 5 or 10 years behind my peers when it came to figuring it out. My mother was 27 when she had my oldest brother, and 36 when she had me. I had missed the 27 window but I thought I still had time. It would be difficult to find someone after 30, I knew that, and increased age made it more difficult to get pregnant. I had accepted that I may be an older mom, like mine was, maybe I wouldn’t be able to run and play as much as I would have wanted to, but I could still be a good mom.
    As I drove out of the parking lot I thought of the doctor. His hurried and rude demeanor as he slapped a prescription on me and sent me on my way. I wanted to go back, to take him by the shoulders and scream at him. “I know you’re a very important and busy man, but this is my health, my life we’re talking about! Can’t you take 5 minutes to talk to me about this disease? The symptoms? Will I ever have children?”
    Increased chances of miscarriage. That was one of the symptoms of my new disease. Over thirty, not even a boyfriend yet, and now I had a condition which could make me miscarry. I had accepted being an old mom, being an old bride, but not being one at all? I’d never thought too seriously about the reality of having children, the birthing grossed me out, and I never liked babies. I always saw my kid as an adolescent, smart, sarcastic and with his father’s eyes. Now that image faded before me, someone I’d never met, a figment of my imagination, but I felt his loss just the same.
    I drove home at 8:38 am, having had my brief appointment. Someone was interviewing a candidate for something on NPR but I wasn’t listening. Tears leaked from my eyes and fell down my cheeks. I wiped them away before they got stuck in the fold of skin under my chin, where my thyroid sat, twice it’s normal size.

Comments

  1. UnknownJune 28, 2016 at 12:06 AM

    You would be an amazing mother. And if you don't have one naturally there are many other ways to have a child. I have done PLENTY of research.You are stronger than you give yourself credit for and though some doctors only see us as a diagnosis.. not a person don't let that get you down. You can always find another doctor. One to work with you as you experience this. You have a support system <3.

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