Spoiler Alert: There's No Max on Medical Bullshit

Well, well, well. It’s been almost a year since I’ve written here, and I have no excuses beyond the fact that time is meaningless during this interminable pandemic. In fact, the time stamp here in Squarespace tells me I started this post on October 11, 2020.

What can I say? Things have been busy, but also…not.

Scott and I have yet to have our wedding, but we somewhat unexpectedly bought a house because we were among the fortunate ones who were able to save extra during said pandemic and take advantage of the low interest rates.

I didn’t write in this blog, but I did technically write a book-shaped thing about all my glorious medical traumas and am working on selling it. I’ve even let some people read it. (HEY ARE YOU A BOOK AGENT? REPRESENT ME!)

And while I had made great strides in 2020 in managing my endometriosis holistically, I also suffered a significant setback that fully changed the course of my healthcare management and planning.

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A Year of Naturopathic Medicine

Last October, I was exhausted.

It wasn’t quite as bad as the autumn before, when I realized that lump in my neck might be why I was able to sleep for 11 hours a night and not feel well rested the next day. I had half my thyroid removed for a smidge of cancer and was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an underactive thyroid.

Despite my underachieving half a thyroid, I didn’t go on any thyroid medication. As micro as my microcarcinoma was, I felt much better once I recovered from my surgery. But a year later, the fatigue had crept back into my life. My thyroid levels were coming back normal from the lab, my ultrasounds were clear. But of course, there was still the endometriosis, a known cause of chronic fatigue syndrome, not to mention all the work I was putting into managing it. And you know, all the nutrients I was losing with my period each month, and I am sure half a dozen other causes of fatigue.

I had seen my endocrinologist for my yearly checkup, and she gave me my choice — I could go on synthetic thyroid hormone, or I could wait. Eventually, I’d have to. Hashimoto’s is degenerative, and that little semi-thyroid will continue to erode as I get older. Technically, though my labwork was normal, what is considered the “normal” range for thyroid hormones also includes abnormal conditions, like say, half a thyroid or Hashimoto’s. Don’t ask me what genius decided that was a good standard to go by. I remembered my surgeon telling me that women in particular often go through life feeling low-grade crappy due to an underactive thyroid that keeps spitting out “normal” results.

Still, I wasn’t wild about starting a life-long drug any sooner than I had to, and I wondered if more wasn’t going on. If my endo was better under control, would I have more energy? If I could get higher-quality sleep, maybe I’d feel better. If I could get my cycles to last longer than 24 days, spacing my periods further apart, then I wouldn’t bleed so often and maybe lose less precious iron. I started exploring adrenal fatigue, not a “medically recognized” condition, but any stressed out, type A woman in her 30s who spends every day grinding against the patriarchy will tell you that shit is real.

But I wasn’t sure what to do.

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Book Guide: It's 2020. Stay Home and Crack Open A Book

In a not-too-terrible turn of events a la the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been reading a ton. I haven’t done a book post since last September, so before it becomes completely unmanageable to recount everything I’ve read to you since then, I figured it was time to give you a roundup of what I’ve been reading. Especially if you, too, are trying to lose yourself in books.

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Go On, Fire Your Doctor.

Two thumbs up for firing a doctor who doesn’t work for you.

I started this post at the beginning of March in honor of Endometriosis Awareness Month.

Then the whole ~pandemic~ thing happened and I didn’t feel motivated to do much of anything, least of all write. And then once I got my writing mojo back a tiny bit, I certainly didn’t feel like raging against doctors and the healthcare system was in particularly good taste considering these were (and are) the people fighting to save the lives of people suffering from a virus no one knows anything about it amidst the ramblings of an unstable toddler who is telling people to ingest bleach and take a medication meant for other diseases.

Now, the uprising sparked by the murder of George Floyd has brought me back to this post, though it’s different than what I had outlined when I started writing back in March. While the mainstream conversation stemming from the protests has largely been about the systemic failings of the police, this reckoning has also spurred other conversations about the inequities that exist for Black people in all facets of American life.

Because I work in healthcare publishing, I take it for granted that everyone knows that when it comes to reproductive healthcare in particular, black women are at a MUCH greater disadvantage than white women. Black women are three to four times more likely than white women to die during pregnancy and childbirth. Black women are three times more likely to experience fibroids. Black women are at a higher risk for a number of health conditions for a variety of reasons ranging from lack of access to care to the toll of chronic stress from being exposed to living with racism, whether overt or latent, every single day. I got these stats and you can read more about these issues here. The reality is that while I’ve been reading the stats as part of my job, many non-Black people are learning this now for the first time.

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Podcast Guide: Because "The Daily" Sends Me Into A Daily Despair Spiral

I listen to a lot of podcasts. Really, I am a podcast fiend. I’ve all but stopped listening to music at this point. I listen in the car, on walks, while I work out (except for running…I still need a borderline repellent thumping beat for that), when cooking, when folding laundry, while making lists…you name it. I mainline audio content.

And with the Overcast app, I even organize them into topic-specific playlists — “News + Politics,” “Psych,” “Work,” “Stories,” “Feministing,” “Foodie,” “True Crime + Spooky Stuff.” There’s more, but letting you in on this, um, habit is starting to make me self-conscious.

Overcast lets you prioritize your playlists, and in my “Master Playlist,” the one I listen to most, I prioritize my favorite daily news podcasts like the NYT’s “The Daily,” Vox’s “Today, Explained,” “NPR Politics,” BBC’s “The World Tonight,” NPR’s “Up First,” and Crooked Media’s “What a Day.” I also prioritize the non-daily news podcasts. (I warned you…it’s a sickness.)

As you probably are not surprised to hear, all this news is not great for my mental health right now. I mean, it was probably never good for my mental health considering this habit really took hold in November 2016 (a date that will live in infamy). But now it’s really out of control thanks to that pain in the ass, coronavirus.

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