Thyroid Update! April, 08

To read previous posts about my thyroid, click here.

Well, good news / band news.

Thank you to the many of you who prayed for my radiation treatment to kill off part of my thyroid. However it appears, [sarcasm] too many of you prayed, [/sarcasm] and too much of my thyroid died.

It's a pretty common problem that's treated with medication. So right now, I alternate between crazy periods of extreme energy and crazy times of fatigue. (Here's a little game! See if you can guess which period each of my upcoming posts come from!) I'm taking a nap almost every day right after work, and usually falling asleep by 9:pm - 9:30.

The good news is that the Lord has been unusually close to me in this time. He has been especially gracious, near, and tender with me. When I pick up the bible in the morning, I feel like I'm wearing 3D glasses: the truth just jumps off the page!

My heart is especially tender to the things of God, and I see His hand quite clearly in all of this. As strange as this is to type, the Lord knows it's true: I am thrilled to be in the middle of this.

Isolation Journal: entry #1

I'm spending five days in isolation. Why?

Well, my thyroid is very ambitious. We tried to slow it down with medicine, but it made my liver go crazy. So, we going nuclear.

Yesterday, at 7:45am, I ingested a dosage of radioactive iodine. My thyroid loves iodine, so it's going to absorb it, and part of it is going to die.

Meanwhile, I have to make sure that I don't get any of this stuff on my three little boys or beautiful wife. So, I'm down in my basement. Eating with plastic silverware. Washing my clothes seperate. And trying to support my wife's single parenting efforts with vain threats to my boys. ("You better listen to your mom and obey THIS SECOND!")

My friends have dedicated songs to me. Matt Stowell dedicated "Toxic" and Andi Rozier dedicated "Don't Stand So Close To Me."

Meanwhile, I'm finishing up some writing (more details to come) and transcribing a Brad Mehldau song called "Blues For Eden". I'm up to measure 102.

Health Update

Things were going pretty well. Most of my symptoms were disappearing with the medicine I was taking.

Then, my doctor called my cell phone and asked if I had started "binge drinking." Well, the holidays had been stressful, but not *that* stressful. He took me off of the medicine, and all my symptoms have returned.

I'm going in for treatment next week. They are going to treat me with radioactive iodine. That will kill of part of my thyroid and give me the best chance of staying off medicine.

The bad news is, however, that I'll be in a sort of isolation for five days until I'm no longer radioactive. :-)

The Tests Are In . . . and . . .

It's Graves Disease.

Don't worry -- it's named after the doctor that discovered it, not the destination.

(more update to follow)

Here's what my wife wrote to my parents:

Hello everyone,

Matthew has been through a battery of tests this week. He's not really one for detail but today his doctor called and told us he has Graves disease. His thyroid is working 3x more than normal. He already has a prescription and now they need to determine the dosage that will help him the most. He will go back in 3 weeks and again in 6 weeks to check the dosage. The doctor did say that after 12-14 months there is a possibility of remission. If it doesn't go into remission after a couple of years of treatment they will have to do a procedure to kill part or all of the thyroid. Then his thyroid would be hypo(underactive). According to the doctor this is much easier/ better to treat, it's easier to add hormones then try to control too many of them. Thank you all for praying for us. It's been a pretty crazy fall for us. Keep praying that Matthew will begin to feel better soon instead of feeling like he's on speed all the time (his resting heart rate is 112). We love you all and wish we were closer in proximity when things like this happen.

Love,
Lisa

and it doesn't feel like I'm "on speed all the time". It feels like I'm coming off a huge cup of expresso. Jittery and exhausted. Bleh.

It's all related.

I'd been feeling jittery and burned out all at the same time. I was feeling my heart race and been out of breath way to much for somebody my age. I was feeling my muscles fail after too little effort.

I was feeling spiritually oppressed. I was feeling emotionally drained. I was feeling bitter at my job for wearing my out. I was feeling angry at my wife for expecting so much of me around the house when I was exhausted. I was feeling disappointed in myself for being a lousy father to my three boys.

I was starting to get annoyed at the people that were saying, "Hey! Looks like you dropped some weight."

Lisa and I drove through the night twice during our vacation to Florida last month. I slept in the car and woke up with some problems in my neck and back. I gave it a week to try to sort itself out, then went to a chiropractor.

"You've lost 15 pounds since I saw you last," she said.

No way, I thought. I weighed myself, and it was thirteen pounds.

We ordered some blood work. It came back that I had extremely low TSH. In a nutshell, it means that my thyroid is attempting to make the Thyroid Olympic team and is working way too hard and way too fast.

The point of what I'm trying to say is this: It's all related.

Maybe it's a western world view, but I'm convinced that the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of our personality are much more related than we all think.