A High-Functioning Person’s Insight on Living With Thyroid Symptoms
As we close up International Thyroid Awareness week, it seems a good a time as any to consider just what living with a thyroid issue looks like, especially when you’re a high-functioning, overachieving dreamer and doer.
Learning to live without a thyroid was a little bit like learning how to walk all over again. Granted, at the age of 7 months, I thought crawling was a waste of time and decided to skip that step, so to speak. One day, I just got up off my derrière and used my chubby legs to wobble over to my mother.
It would seem I’ve always been eager.
As I grew up, my innate ambitiousness was amplified by external expectations to succeed at school, extracurricular activities and life. I went to a school that praised academic excellence above all else. I then went to a university that also held those values dear.
When thyroid cancer struck, there was a moment of “this can’t be happening” followed by “how am I supposed to finish my Masters degree and continue working when I have to have surgery?” I was in my early twenties, and in my mind, this was the time to be doing as much as I could.
In hindsight, it’s ridiculous that I was so wound up and focused on work and school that one of my first thoughts was about how was I going to…
