here I am

I know you have all been thinking about me and praying for me and sending good thoughts. I have needed to thank you, so here I am today. Thank you for thinking about me. It helps so incredibly much!! All the test results came back negative, and that's a good thing. Ruling stuff out is progress.


March was just a terrible month, really, and not something I would want to go through again - but through it I went and what ended up happening was that I once again learned new things. I kept getting stuck on the single question that all the doctors, nurses, and nurse practitioners asked me at one point or another: do you have a lot of stress in your life? Are you feeling anxious? Well, yeah, but it's not like I've never had stress before, and it didn't land me in the hospital with a heart monitor!


I was just feeling badly enough with enough symptoms that warranted bloodwork (there is always the possibility of thyroid issues for me), but what it came down to was something I am still struggling finding words to.


Though I have a blog and talk about what I'm up to, and I am generally a decently sociable gal, I am at heart a very private person. I am the kind that sees a problem (or major construction at the house that took many more weeks than it should have; or a father-in-law with progressing dementia; or a mother-in-law with the second major surgery within 3 months; or a son in college with a course overload, after a serious bout with mononucleosis; or the question of whether to finally try and sell this house or not; or me being homesick because I haven't see my family in nearly two years, and not knowing where the money for a flight will come from; or the specter of asthma due to allergies [which turned out to be a hoax]; or tendonitis that prevents me from knitting much at all to help me stay calm) - I am the kind of person that always comes up with a solution, without running around and discussing it with a whole bunch of people.


Except when there are so many solutions piled on top of each other that it must have got to me at some point.
And my body took over and said "Look. You need to stop trying to take care of everything and everybody all the time at the same time. OK??"


So here I am a little more than a month later, and it has taken me about 10 days to try and figure out a way to tell you that I most likely am dealing with anxiety issues. Yes I am talking to a trusted therapist, and I am trying a new drug (second one, but I'm told sometimes it takes a few to find the right one). Because worrying about how much I worry does nobody any good at all, least of all me.


So here we are. I am sorry for worrying you, my heart is fine, my general health is fine; we did decide to take the whole thyroid out - the general consensus is that I do not want to walk around with a nodule on that gland that is 3 x 2.5 cm big and has a cyst for company. The surgery date is May 10th.