My Diagnosis
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It was Christmas Eve of the year 2000. My husband, his side of the family, and I are heading out for the late church service. It is cold outside, but I am in short sleeves and wearing no coat. This is so unlike me since I’m usually the one wearing several layers and then needing a blanket too. As my mother in-law asks me if I am cold, I reply “not at all.” I tell my mother in-law that I hope it’s a sign that I am pregnant with our first child. My husband and I have been trying to conceive for a couple of months now.
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Earlier that day while getting ready for church, I am on the floor putting on my heels. I am so worn out that I couldn’t get off the floor by myself; my husband had to help me up. I remember thinking to myself that twenty-six years old is a tough age, or maybe I am pregnant. I end up buying a pregnancy test a day or two after Christmas, but it comes back negative. For the rest of the week I go about my regular activities.
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It wasn’t until going back to work after New Year’s Day that I started passing out anytime I would stand for a length of time. As a hairstylist, I stood pretty much all day unless it was a slow day. So, here I was sent home from work for passing out. I’m still weak and hot all the time. I think to myself, I must be pregnant, since that is what we are hoping for. I decide to go ahead and schedule an appointment with my doctor to verify I am in fact, pregnant, because the pregnancy test I took must have been wrong.
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I remember the morning I went to see the doctor very well. It was cold and drizzling out; in fact, so cold that ice patches formed on some of the streets in the DFW area, not everywhere though. The doctor’s office opened late that day, due to the ice. I remember yelling at one of the nurses about not opening on time when there was no ice on the ground where we were. Let’s just say, I’m not acting like myself, and I don’t even realize it.
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The doctor finally gets me into a room and talks to me. I tell him about my symptoms and about how I think I’m pregnant. He quickly does a pregnancy test and draws some blood to run other tests. I don’t think anything about the other tests because in my mind there was only one important test. I wait in the room by myself for the pregnancy test to be finished. When the doctor comes back in, I get the news that I’m not pregnant and that there must be something else wrong. The doctor sends me home, to wait on the results from the blood work he ran. I go home that day crushed that I’m not pregnant but also worried about what might be wrong with me.
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It is a day later now, when I get a call from the doctor’s office to come in. The doctor has gotten the results back from my blood work. I go in to see my doctor, and I find out I have an extremely high thyroid level. The doctor tells me he specifically ran this blood test because he could see my pupils pinging. My doctor informs me that I will need to see an endocrinologist, to get some tests run, to see if I have something called Graves’ disease or cancer. All I remember that day in the doctor’s office, after the word cancer, is crying uncontrollably. Here I was, a twenty-six-year-old trying to get pregnant, but instead it could be CANCER!
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Later that night, I was having a big, fat, pity party, and my husband was listening to it all. He helped me to snap out of my pity party and the negative attitude I had. He prayed for me, and then we prayed together about what we were about to go through. My husband has been through something like this before, for at thirteen years of age he lost his mother to cancer. My husband helped me to stay positive during this tough time.
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It took about three weeks to finally get in to see the endocrinologist, which seems like forever when one is dealing with the possibility of cancer. We set our appointment for the test, to find out if I have cancer, or if it’s the other thing the first doctor spoke of. After the test, my husband had to go out of town for his job, so I ended up staying with my in-laws. I was still weak, couldn’t work, and by this time had lost so much weight. My in-laws and I wait patiently by the phone for the next several days, hoping to find out my results. I finally receive a call from my doctor saying that I in fact, have, Graves’ disease and not cancer. I hang up the phone with my doctor, and my in-laws and I cry tears of relief. I give my husband, who is still out of town a call, to give him the good news.
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About two weeks later, it is time to go to the hospital to get my special radioactive iodine pill, to cure my overactive thyroid problem. I was told that I would need to wait a full year before my husband and I could start trying to conceive again. Over the next couple of months, I begin to get back to normal. I’m able to return to work within a few weeks of getting treatment. We were finally given permission from my doctor in March of 2002 to start trying to conceive again.
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Looking back on my experience with this, I have found my faith to be much stronger. I need to remember to give everything troubling me to God. I also learned that sometimes God says no, or just not right now. At the age of twenty-six, I was a selfish person. I didn’t think much about things not going my way because I tried to always make sure they did. I had a husband, a house, and a job I loved. I thought it was time for kids too. I found out it just wasn’t the plan for me, yet, for I still had some growing to do. I know you have heard this before, but really, I do thank God for the illness to learn to trust Him more, to get down on my knees and pray more, and to learn that something great can come out of something bad. My husband and I have a stronger marriage because of what we went through. We were financially in a better place to start a family, and I had matured into a person ready for the gift of a child.
